Film, Indy Week

Anarchic spirit in gonzo-comedy throwback This Is the End

Glenn McDonald — Wed, 12 Jun 2013 04:00:00 -0400

As the Apocalypse descends upon Los Angeles, Seth Rogen and his famous friends (including Jonah Hill, Michael Cera and Emma Watson) smoke up and party down at James Franco's house. by Glenn McDonald Co-written and co-directed by Seth Rogen, This Is the End is something of a throwback to that style of movie they used to call the gonzo comedy. Like The Blues Brothers or Caddyshack, it takes a simple comedic premise, brings aboard a busload of funny people and then lets them cut loose with cameras rolling.…

Jesse and Celine return in Before Midnight, getting old in Greece

David Fellerath — Wed, 12 Jun 2013 04:00:00 -0400

When do we ever see this movie, this film that tells the truth about the not-so-happily-ever-after? by David Fellerath I approached Richard Linklater's Before Midnight with the kind of trepidation with which you might approach a Belle and Sebastian record you haven't listened to in a couple of decades. I was 25 when I met Jesse (Ethan Hawke) and Celine (Julie Delpy) in Before Sunrise.…

Greta Gerwig on the end of youth and Frances Ha

Emma D. Miller — Wed, 05 Jun 2013 04:00:00 -0400

Apologies to all those millennials who buy into the idea that 30 is the new 20: Writer and actress Greta Gerwig thinks you need to grow up already. by Emma D. Miller Apologies to all those millennials who buy into the idea that 30 is the new 20: Writer and actress Greta Gerwig thinks you need to grow up already. "At 27, your youth is over," she says.…

With Frances Ha, Noah Baumbach makes a bid to be the next Woody Allen

David Fellerath — Wed, 05 Jun 2013 04:00:00 -0400

Your tolerance for Frances Ha may depend on whether you enjoy peering through a window at a better, wittier place where you can always find a friend with a "little pied-á-terre" in Paris you can borrow. by David Fellerath Woody Allen may be a national treasure, and his movies come and go every summer as regularly as the Perseid meteor shower. But the Woodman's not going to be around forever.…

Sarah Polley digs up family secrets in Stories We Tell

Craig D. Lindsey — Wed, 05 Jun 2013 04:00:00 -0400

In this functional tale of dysfunctional-family drama, Canadian actress-turned-director Polley points her camera at the people in her life to get the skinny on her late mother, Diane. by Craig D. Lindsey In the documentary Stories We Tell, Canadian actress-turned-director Sarah Polley points her camera at the people in her life to get the skinny on her late mother, Diane. Deemed the life of the party by family and friends, Diane died from cancer when Polley was little.…

Them Iowa boys mean business in At Any Price

Glenn McDonald — Wed, 22 May 2013 04:00:00 -0400

Director Ramin Bahrani's stark farmland drama chronicles one family's moral decay among the amber waves of grain. by Glenn McDonald Set deep in the American heartland of Iowa corn country, director Ramin Bahrani's stark farmland drama At Any Price chronicles one family's moral decay among the amber waves of grain. The film also has a few things to say about America herself and, as the title suggests, the cultural premium we place on winning.…

N.C. native Ramin Bahrani on At Any Price, the state of movies, and Roger Ebert's death

David Fellerath — Wed, 22 May 2013 04:00:00 -0400

Ramin Bahrani, a Winston-Salem native, has charted an unlikely path to making a film with Zac Efron in the cornfields of Iowa. by David Fellerath Ramin Bahrani, a Winston-Salem native, has charted an unlikely path to making a film with Zac Efron in the cornfields of Iowa. His three previous, widely praised features were marked by their devotion to a realist aesthetic most closely associated with foreign filmmakers.…

A teenage girl grows up on a journey across Germany after the war in Lore

David Fellerath — Wed, 15 May 2013 04:00:00 -0400

Lore and her siblings find themselves alone in the world, with only a few valuables to barter on their way to their grandmother's house hundreds of miles north. by David Fellerath The new German-language drama Lore, which is set at the end of the Second World War, is Hunger Games meets Downfall meets The Road. That's a simplistic formulation, but if you think such a combination sounds good, then this film is for you.…

Renoir the painter and Renoir the filmmaker

David Fellerath — Wed, 08 May 2013 04:00:00 -0400

Renoir, a ravishing and sensuous imagining of one summer late in the life of Pierre-Auguste Renoir, makes the great painter's work matter again by putting an aging man's passions into an emotional and historical context. by David Fellerath I'm not much of a Renoir fan. He was my teenage gateway into French painting, an early enthusiasm to be discarded.…

A compelling tale of NYC graffiti artists in Gimme the Loot

Craig D. Lindsey — Wed, 24 Apr 2013 04:00:00 -0400

For his very low-budget debut, writer/director Adam Leon makes a spirited teen comedy with predominantly minority characters, which is damn near amazing in itself. by Craig D. Lindsey Gimme the Loot doesn't do any wonders for New York City tourism. In fact, it may vindicate people who've always assumed the city to be a cesspool of crime (never mind that the stereotype is two decades out of date).…

You can see great movies at NCMA; why can't the facilities match the programming?

Craig D. Lindsey — Wed, 17 Apr 2013 04:00:00 -0400

"We live for the day that we might have a little larger and more comfortable theater," says George Holt, the museum's director of performing arts and film programs. by Craig D. Lindsey Most Friday nights, die-hard film fans converge on the North Carolina Museum of Art to take in a movie in the East Building's auditorium. But while they usually enjoy the selection, whether it's a W.C. Fields comedy (that this reporter introduced) or a Godard head-scratcher, they're not exactly comfortable.…

Detroit firefighter doc BURN uses grassroots distribution methods

Glenn McDonald — Wed, 10 Apr 2013 04:00:00 -0400

Across the country, local firefighters are knocking on doors to ask cinema managers and owners to screen this award-winning independent documentary. by Glenn McDonald It's not something you necessarily think about when you go to the movies, but getting a film into cinemas for theatrical exhibition is a huge deal. For Hollywood movies, there's an entire industry dedicated to the process.…

Danny Boyle's heist film Trance is slick

Neil Morris — Wed, 10 Apr 2013 04:00:00 -0400

Trance feels like a film made by someone auditing a community college course in hypnotherapy by day and watching Inception on repeat every night. by Neil Morris A friend once said he held a special affinity for Martin Scorsese's remake of Cape Fear because "it feels like Scorsese just having fun." The same could be said for Danny Boyle's Trance, his return of sorts to crime thrillers like his 1994 feature debut, Shallow Grave.…

Oscar-nominated Chilean film NO returns to Pinochet era

David Fellerath — Wed, 10 Apr 2013 04:00:00 -0400

A young ad director is recruited to develop the message of the anti-Pinochet faction. Since advertising is about getting people to say "yes," how do you sell people on the word "no"? by David Fellerath In the late 1980s, one of the great Western liberal causes was Chile, and the sclerotic, violent dictatorship of Gen. Augusto Pinochet. Sting sang "They Dance Alone" and U2 recorded "Mothers of the Disappeared," both songs inspired by the grieving women dancing at Santiago's Plaza de Mayo.…

Ginger & Rosa grow up fast in 1960s London

Craig D. Lindsey — Wed, 03 Apr 2013 04:00:00 -0400

Writer/director Sally Potter (Orlando)again documents the usually lonely road a woman takes in finding out who she really is, this time from the perspective of someone who isn't even a woman yet. by Craig D. Lindsey What is it about those damn Fanning sisters that makes them such amazing actresses to watch? For a few years there, I would take delight in watching Dakota Fanning, when she was at her tiniest and most precocious, whenever she was in a movie.…

Thirty years of surveillance in Israeli doc The Gatekeepers

David Fellerath — Wed, 27 Mar 2013 04:00:00 -0400

A culture of drone strikes and Wikileaks videos has acclimated us to the sight of eye-in-the-sky surveillance and the vaporization of a van driving down a city street. by David Fellerath The Gatekeepers opens in sobering fashion. A few years ago, the adjective might have been "chilling" or "shocking," but a culture of drone strikes and Wikileaks videos has acclimated us to the sight of eye-in-the-sky surveillance and the vaporization of a van driving down a city street.…