31 Horrors: Frankenweenie (#13)

Wherein I attempt to watch 31 horror films over the course of October. 31 horror films that I have never seen before, from obscure to acclaimed classics. We'll see how well I go in actually finding the time to watch and then write about them in some way.

Frankenweenie

Dir. Tim Burton

Country: USA

Running Time: 90mins

Aus Rating: PG

Social outcasts? Check.

Monochrome colour palate? Check.

Horror references? Check.

Yup, must be another Tim Burton film. Thankfully, Frankenweenie – the American director’s second film of the year following the dire Dark Shadows – is a return to form and a delight. While it is essentially a “kid’s movie”, its themes of re-animation and horror may not be appropriate for younger crowds. Still, Frankenweenie does a far better job of teaching pre-teen and early-teen audiences the sort of values that will be far more beneficial to their lives than being able to kick a football, and does it with more invention and originality than other more colourful, cutesy animations.

Read the rest at Trespass Magazine

MIFF Blogathon: Day 15 (Don't Be Afraid of A Tribe Called Sleeping Sickness)

This blogathon is an initiative of MIFF for their 60th anniversary year. I am one of six bloggers given the mission of seeing 60 films in 17 days and writing, reporting, reviewing and wrangling my way through the tiredness and hunger to bring the festival experience to your computer.

Bi, Don't Be Afraid
Dir. Dang Di Phan
Running Time: 92mins

A sumptuously detailed exploration of four different generations in Vietnam, Dang Di Phan's gorgeously lensed Bi, Don't Be Afraid [Bi, dung so!] slowly crept up on me and surprised me like another Vietnamese/French co-production from many years ago, The Scent of Green Papaya. Told generally from the point of view of Bi, a 9-year-old boy who live with his doting mother, alcoholic father, single aunt and dying grandfather. He associates with the lithe, teenage boys at a nearby factory more than kids his own age and watches curiously as they express their masculinity by stripping off in the turgid heat as much as possible. His aunt, meanwhile, develops a crush on a young student and his parents deal with their potentially crumbling marriage in the shadow of a dying patriarch.

The cinematography by Quang Pham Minh is divine, capturing the Vietnamese countryside in an assortment of lush greens, rustic golds and smoky greys while at the same time capturing great moments in picturesque ways. Two boys devouring a watermelon or the rain-soaked aunt cowering amongst reeds are just two that spring to mind as memorable, lasting images. The casual "slice of life" narrative drifts along in an almost dreamy manner and this debut film by Phan has a delicate balance that suckered me in. B+

Sleeping Sickness
Dir. Ulrich Köhler
Running Time: 91mins

A curious film is Ulrich Köhler's German/French co-production set in Cameroon. Split into two distinct halves, it always holds its cards very firmly to its chest. I was in constant thought of "where is this going?" and while it may not have gone somewhere I particularly understand, I appreciate it's ripe storytelling and visually arresting take on the tricky material.

Initially starring Pierre Bokma as a German doctor, Ebbo Velten, living in and running a treatment centre for the titular disease in Cameroon, Sleeping Sickness [Schlafkrankheit] takes a sudden detour and focuses of French doctor of Congolese descent, Jean-Christophe Folly as Alex Nzila, visiting Africa for the first time to conduct a report on Velten's study. The contrast of white man living in Africa and black man visiting for the first time is deftly handled by Köhler and the juxtaposition is never obvious. The final scenes, set amongst the deep black nighttime jungles, are mysterious and ambiguous. I was definitely perplexed by Sleeping Sickness, but found it constantly involving. B

Melbourne Shorts (Program 2)
Dir. Various
Running Time: 100mins (cume)

A much more entertaining batch of shorts than program 1 (although that may have to do with the fact that I was sitting with the incredible Mel Campbell, laughing our butts off!), this second collection of short films about Melbourne spans 1954 to 1979 and looks mostly at how the future (so, er, today) will look at the city of the past.

Beginning with Geoffrey Thompson's 1954 short Planning for Melbourne's Future (19mins) and the Melbourne Underground Rail Loop Authority's (so no actual director?) Loop (14mins) from 1973, the two films provide laughs a-plenty for Melburnians who deal daily with public transport fiascoes. As narrators explain the daily, worsening struggle of transporters cramming into trains and trams like sardines on their way to work and talking about how they need to make changes for the future I couldn't help but laugh. You can watch it at The Department of Planning and Community Development. Loop is particularly well edited and photographed (despite the poor quality of the print) and despite a truly bizarre lapse into comedic narrative that had my howling with laughter, they're wonderfully made shorts that really do provide a history lesson of this amazing city.


The City Speaks from 1965 was next, produced by The Housing Commission of Victoria and it was just as dull as the title and production house would allude to. I drifted off at some point during this 21min film and can't even really remember much about what I did see. The score was terrible, too. Far better was Gil Brealey's Late Winter to Early Spring (12mins) from 1954. A black and white silent film that follows several people - a grandmother and two kids, two women of different class waiting for their dates and a homeless man - around the botanical gardens. It's lovingly lensed and surprisingly creative in its compositions that bristle with humour and style.

Peter McIntyre's Your House and Mine (23mins) is a 1958 short that was produced in tandem with a local architectural digest magazine. It's horrible dated - "In [the late 1800s] during the dying days of the Aborigine" !!! - and, subsequently, hilarious short that examines what Australia's defining style of architecture and where it fits into the development of our ever widening cities. It's got a charming style, brisk editing and ridiculously comical narration. The program unfortunately ended on a bit of a dud note with John Dunkley-Smith's Flinders Street (11mins) from 1979. It's not much more than a curiosity, a document of what this iconic Melbourne landmark and its surrounding areas looked like at the time. I had no idea there used to be a cinema next door to the Young & Jackson pub on the corner of Flinders and Swanston! For what it's worth, the cinema was playing Superman, The Jungle Book and Saturday Night Fever. What makes the film especially bizarre is the presentation where two boxy 16mm screens are presented side-by-side. One has sound and is in colour, the other does not. The two screens more or less film the same stuff - walking from corner to corner around the area - with one a minute or so behind. It's curious stuff and I'm not sure it worked, but it was certainly interesting to see the big skyscraper that was demolished and replaced by Federation Square or the way the train station itself and the famous clock facade has changed so little.

You can read more about Flinders Street at Senses of Cinema.

Beats Rhymes & Life: The Travels of A Tribe Called Quest
Dir. Michael Rapaport
Running Time: 98mins

Warning: Beats Rhymes & Life is dangerous to your health!

I dare anybody who see this film, Michael Rapaport's debut as director after a career in acting, and not want to investigate the entire recording career of A Tribe Called Quest. The groundbreaking New York hip-hop group of the late 1980s and early 1990s is given 98 minutes of love and affection in this documentary that is unfortunately conventional, but never boring. The music of A Tribe Called Quest - as well as the other assorted artists who are featured as inspirations of or inspired by the band - is so infectious and each song a masterpiece of construction and craft that I can easily forgive Rapaport's lacklustre direction. As the twentysomething white girl down the aisle said during the credits: "That was dope!"

Dope, indeed.

It's hard to see documentaries being made out contemporary hip-hop artists that would allow them to be portrayed as such funny, interesting people as Q-Tip, Phife Dawg, Ali Shaheed and the especially touching Jarobi White. These were men that never particularly flaunted their success and sung about pertinent issues. The live musical sequences are energetically captured, but like the rest of the film, they're hardly mindblowing. Fantastic animation throughout is about as close as The Travels of A Tribe Called Quest gets to being truly cinematic, but the beats, the rhymes and the life of A Tribe Called Quest make this film a delightful experience. B

MIFF TALES
The awesomeness that is MIFF was exemplified today when, after leaving Sleeping Sickness at The Forum, I ended up running into not one or two, three or four, but five wonderful fellow MIFF-attending critfolks. I see these people pretty regularly - well, not Simon from Quickflix since he lives in Perth - but there's something so metropolitan about just turning around and spotting someone you know.

I should also point out that with two days left of the festival, the end is coming right at the perfect time. My legs appear to have not adapted well to their almost perma-bend-in-uncomfortable-seat position and my dickey knee has been acting up big time. I injured it years ago and it hadn't bothered me in a very long time, but I guess 54 films in 15 days (two more on Saturday, four on Sunday will bring me to the magic 60!) has not been the best for it.

Meanwhile, I love that the "closing night" festivities (Nicolas Winding Refn's Drive and an elaborate party with drinks, drinks, drinks and probably some celebrities who discuss how great it is to see Melbourne filmgoers out in force seeing films whilst probably not letting slip that they didn't see any apart from their own. I love how completely and utterly Australian it is to hold the closing night festivities on a Saturday night when the festival doesn't actually end until Sunday night. Certainly gives people who aren't filming it up on Sunday the chance to get completely shit-faced and not have to worry about work in the morning. Well done Australia, you rock!

MIFF Blogathon: Day 13 (Once Upon a Time in Uruguay)

This blogathon is an initiative of MIFF for their 60th anniversary year. I am one of six bloggers given the mission of seeing 60 films in 17 days and writing, reporting, reviewing and wrangling my way through the tiredness and hunger to bring the festival experience to your computer.

Once Upon a Time in Anatolia
Dir. Nuri Bilge Ceylan
Running Time: 158mins

At 160 minutes, the first film I have seen by acclaimed Nuri Bilge Ceylan is certainly a long-haul flight of a movie. For at least two acts of Ceylan's Once Upon a Time in Anatolia [Bir zamanlar Anadolu'da] I was more or less entranced. Featuring stunning night time cinematography by Gökhan Tiryaki the gorgeous look of the film is matched by buoyant performances by actors who wrap their tongues around the twisty dialogue almost with relish. The central story of the police driving around two men charged with murder as they try to find the location (amongst a countryside full of identical locations) of a buried corpse is handled with deft skill. The screenplay by Ceylan, Ebru Ceylan and Ercan Kesal weaves non-sequitur conversations peppered with light comedy throughout that strikes a wonderful balance.

It's a shame then that Ceylan takes a different tact with the final third of the film and amps up the comedy. Shifting tones with the rising sun, Once Upon a Time in Anatolia ends up feeling somewhat disjointed with broken rhythms. A lengthy autopsy sequence at film's end, while a fascinating study of the sound editing craft, feels superfluous, although the very final moment is great. It's a hard film to observe, but ultimately a rewarding one. B

A Useful Life
Dir. Federico Veiroj
Running Time: 67mins

A tiresome, dreary and dull look at a Uruguayan cinema, A Useful Life [La vida útil] is as slow a snail's pace and features one of the most sour-faced lead performances I've ever witnessed by Federico Veiroj. What a load of garbage! There is so little to this film that I don't even know how to write it up. At less than 70 minutes I actually don't even know if this technically counts as a film, but a film it gets called. I mean, it was certainly made on film and features actors and there is music in the background so if that's what constitutes a movie then A Useful Life is a movie! Success!

Everybody walks around in this movie at such a slow pace and does their terribly menial jobs with all the enthusiasm of a corpse. By the time Jorge's playdo-faced cinema employee finally escapes the dungeon that is his career the proceedings become somewhat more loose and free-flowing, but then he's more just an idiot doing idiotic things. And do I have to mention the radio sequence? I know the whole scene is meant to be a joke, but good grief... A Useful Life is certainly in love with cinema - of that I have no doubt - but the filmmakers seem to have no idea as to what actually makes cinema so great. There's none of the innovation, energy, dynamism, explosiveness or sumptuousness that so many classic films have. In the end it just ends up as a forgetful nostalgia trip. Terrible. D-

A Useful Life screened alongside Louis Garrel's 44 minute "short" The Little Tailor [Petit tailleur]. This was a grinding faux-new wave film with dishclanger acting and idiot characters. I snoozed through a lot of it, but what I saw was flat. D


I also saw Beauty [Skoonheid], but can't discuss it right now. I really haven't the time this evening to think about it so hopefully I'll include it amongst one of the packages in coming days.

MIFF TALES
It was so great to see a nearly sold out crowd at this morning's 11am screening of Once Upon a Time in Anatolia. It really does give one a peppy bounce at that time of day to see so many people who aren't seeing 60 films during the festival taking the time out at that horrendous time of day for an 160 minute European film. I found my seat right at the back, where I prefer, in an empty row and throughout the film's running time found myself in almost any position you could possibly consider to make myself comfortable. My knees don't work at the best of times, let alone when I've been sitting down for over 40 films in a barely 2 week period!

MIFF Blogathon: Day 8 (Top Floor Brother on the Sly)

This blogathon is an initiative of MIFF for their 60th anniversary year. I am one of six bloggers given the mission of seeing 60 films in 17 days and writing, reporting, reviewing and wrangling my way through the tiredness and hunger to bring the festival experience to your computer.

On the Sly
Dir. Olivier Ringer
Running Time: 77mins

"Cute, but slight" is a frequent criticism of films that play festivals. It could easily be said for Olivier Ringer's On the Sly [A pas de loup], a nicely made French drama about a girl who suspects she is invisible to her busy Parisian parents so, on a weekend trip to the country, she decides to become just that and vanishes before their very eyes. She then spends several days living in the forest behind the country home, fending for herself (she finds a berry - just one - and then eats worms), amasses several pets and takes care of a cluster of plant seeds.

Starring Wynona Ringer - I'm assuming the director's own daughter? - the film only ever shows the faces of those who can "see" her; a kindly old gent who offers her some seeds to plant and, later on, her father. The scenes set in her makeshift hut of sticks and fern leaves are quaint, but enjoyable, and the film certainly doesn't outstay its welcome, however, just like The Ugly Duckling yesterday, it feels quite long despite being less than 80 minutes. There's nothing overtly wrong with On the Sly, but it could have probably used a bit of fleshing out or a director with a few more tricks up their sleeve. B-

Top Floor Left Wing
Dir. Angelo Cianci
Running Time:

I feel like I would have enjoyed Angelo Cianci's debut feature Top Floor Left Wing [Dernier etage gauche gauche] if I had more rest behind me. From what I could gather from the film, however, it's a funny - if not as funny hah hah as the rest of the crowd seems to find it - film that is directed with vigour, features an energetic soundtrack and is acted with some real zest. Judging by the reaction it received post credits, and considering the similar storylines involving chaotic villains, Top Floor Left Wing is this year's Four Lions; last year's hilarious terrorist comedy from Chris Morris. B-

Experimental Shorts Program 1
Dir. Various
Running Time: 81mins

I attempted to make my way through the first program of experimental shorts, but - as I inevitably do with short films - I ended up frustrated, annoyed and left. I could handle the first of the four shorts, Nathaniel Dorsky's Pastourelle, even if it did kinda just remind me of 17 minutes of outtakes from ABC1's Gardening Australia, what with its out of focus close-ups of flowers and streams of sunlight. And with no soundtrack, either!


I decided to leave after the second short, Ben Russell's 10-minute Tryppes #7 (Badlands), which was, for the majority of its length, just a single shot of a woman as a bell rings every 60 seconds. These sort of films frequently lead me to query where they are going, but the answer is inevitably "nowhere" and I'm glad I left before the commencement of the 40-minute Slow Action, which was apparently dire and the title alone gave me the shivers!

Brother Number One
Dir. Annie Goldson
Running Time: 97mins

This New Zealand documentary follows famous sportsman Rob Hamill as he travels to Cambodia - with detours to Australia and his native New Zealand - to give a victim statement at a trial for an evil Khmer Rouge leader responsible for the death of his bother, Kerry. As any documentary about the atrocities committed by the Khmer Rouge would be - you'll know of what I speak if you've seen Oscar-winning The Killing Fields from 1984 - Brother Number One (and not Number One Brother as I've been erroneously calling it all day!) is affecting and will wring tears from many.

It's such a shame then that director Annie Goldson's film isn't more a visually dynamic film. It's a very straightforward film, with little done to take it to the next level whether that be visually, structurally or within the material. While, thankfully, the story at its core is important enough to not necessarily need it, it just makes it hard to really say the film itself deserves the score I give it as opposed to the potency of its subject. B

The Black Power Mix-Tape 1967-1975
Dir. Göran Olsson
Running Time: 100mins

It's funny the things that can swing one's opinion of a film. Goran Olsson's The Black Power Mix-Tape 1967-1975 is a fascinating, and frequently enraging exploration of the black civil rights movement through the eyes of previously unseen Swedish news footage from the era. The film is definitely put together well and the interviews - both on screen from the 1960s and '70s to the audio interviews with the likes of ?uestlove, Erykah Badu, Talib Kweli and so forth - are interesting and full of wonderful details that, for someone like me, are quite illuminating.

Unfortunately, for a film with the word "Mix-Tape" in the title, there is a distinct lack of music. In fact, apart from one Michael Jackson song at the very beginning and a recurring use of one track by The Roots that I can't recall the title of (it was a great song) there is no music whatsoever. Perhaps it was naive to think a movie with this title explored the rights movement through music? Perhaps. B

MIFF TALES
You know what I've discovered is a really good way to stop oneself from falling asleep during a movie? Sit at the back of the cinema and as you drift off your head will topple backwards and hit the wall! I did this tonight at the ever fancy Greater Union 5 and my head hit the wall with an almighty smack. The lady next to me even jumped. I had to apologise: "Sorry, I fell asleep and my head hit the wall." Only during MIFF could I say that and not be embarrassed. The amount of times I've dozed off during films so far this festival is embarrassing in itself! Tomorrow I have Ruhr, so I'm sure it'll be happening again.

Along with the sleepiness, I think I'm getting deep vein thrombosis in my legs and to top off that marvellous feeling my coughing fits are remaining hoarse and sore. Plus I feel like I've been wearing the same clothes over and over again (I have, at least, with my jeans, which are the most comfortable ones to wear whilst in public that still look like I'm not wearing "comfy jeans"). I think I'm gonna have to swing into Little Cupcakes tomorrow and cheer myself up! It's not like my resident cupcake cooking friend Suze is helping!

*waits for a basket of cupcakes all his own!*

No? Oh...

MIFF Blogathon: Day 1 (Kings of Comedy, Depressed Planets and 1950s Melbourne)

This blogathon is an initiative of MIFF for their 60th anniversary year. I am one of six bloggers given the mission of seeing 60 films in 17 days and writing, reporting, reviewing and wrangling my way through the tiredness and hunger to bring the festival experience to your computer.

The King of Comedy
Dir. Martin Scorsese
Running Time: 109mins

Amidst the 250+ feature films at MIFF is a series of retrospective titles from throughout the 60 year history of the festival. It was, perhaps, fitting to start my festival with one I had already seen and loved since it's always great to get a festival off to a good start. Martin Scorsese's The King of Comedy may seem like a curious title to screen, but watching it again and it makes perfect sense. This brutal satire on celebrity is as pertinent today as it surely was in 1983 when originally released and remains one of Scorsese's finest works. In fact, I rank it just below Taxi Driver as his best film, so you know I liked it a lot!

That screenplay by Paul Zimmerman - a BAFTA winner for Best Original Screenplay, one of only a few award season wins, further cementing its reputation as a under-cherished gem - is truly a thing of beauty, filled with so many barbs, awkwardness and genius exchanges. It's shocking to realise that Zimmerman would only go on to write one other screenplay (the 1988 Giles Foster comedy Consuming Passions).


Of course, a large part of this film's success rests with the cast. While Jerry Lewis and Diahnne Abbott are wonderful, for me it's all about Robert DeNiro and Sandra Bernhard. DeNiro's Rupert Pupkin is such an uncomfortably character to be around, and yet his goofy innocence remains charming. Even once he's well and truly fallen off the deep end I can't help but still be entertained by him. It's this tricky skill that makes this one of DeNiro's very best performances. Who can't laugh at the whingeing exchanges between Pupkin and his off screen mother? And Sandra Bernhard... Sandra Bernhard! Her borderline insane performance as stalker Masha is one of my all time favourite performances. It's my understanding that a lot of her part was improvised, with her brand of comedy did not endearing Bernhard to co-star Jerry Lewis, but it's exactly this tension that makes those final scenes as well as they do. Such a rich and rewarding film. Isn't it about time this film was finally raised to classic status like Taxi Driver or Raging Bull? A

Melbourne Shorts (Program 1)
Dir. Various
Running Time: 69mins

This collection of six short films were introduced to the sold out crowd as being a way of exploring Melbourne's past on this 60th anniversary of the festival. What we got was a bit of a mixed bag. Beginning with Darrel Wardle's's weird is-it-a-pisstake-or-not The American (10mins) from 1959, which proposed to look at the ways America's superior manufacturing and invention has changed other cities across the world. It was followed by Douglas White's 1966 dialogue free Life in Australia: Melbourne (19mins), which followed the casual comings and goings of Melburnians as they do everything from go to work, purchase TV Week and go see William Castle's The Busy Body.

By far the corniest of the lot was Melbourne Wedding Belle (10mins), a curiously wannabe technicolour short about various members of a bridal party making there way to the wedding. Colin Dean's short had most of the dialogue narrated and written in a rhyming fashion as if they're lyrics. It was good for a few laughs at how completely silly the whole thing was, especially the strand about the old lady who just needed a new pillbox hat. The final short was David Greig's Sunday in Melbourne (19mins), an incredibly tedious exploration of - you guessed it - Sunday in Melbourne. It's by far too long and generally quite pointless, using the advantages of a short film structure to no effective use whatsoever. Although it does work as a compare and contrast piece if you look at the differences between a Sunday in Melbourne in 1958 and 2011. Perhaps knowing its shortcomings full well, the pompous narrator tells the audience at film's end that most people find Sunday remarkably boring.


The two best shorts, however, were Malcolm Wallhead's The Cleaners (16mins) from 1969 and The Melbourne Concert Hall (19mins) from 1982. The former was a rather gorgeously photographed look at one of the dirtiest of professions. The latter - the most recent of the shorts in both programs - was a rather simple documentary short on the building of The Melbourne Concert Hall in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Much of the information given by the talking heads was rather fascinating and anybody with a love of architecture should try and seek this short film out. I liked the factoid about the building being designed to last for 150 years! Pertinent now since they're remodelling it right now for a 2012 unveiling. My favourite part, however, was the way they mixed construction footage with musical pieces, to provide a rather lovely contrast. Reminded of Takeshi Kitano's Zatoichi, actually.

Hopefully program 2 towards the end of the festival yields better rewards.

Melancholia
Dir. Lars von Trier
Running Time: 130mins

Lars von Trier announced that there would be "no more happy endings" and, when you think about it, there was really nowhere else for the notorious Danish troublemaker to go than Melancholia. It's a film that takes the debilitating cruelty of depression to it's next logical step. There's little doubt that von Trier's metaphors here are obvious, but it's what he does with them that allows him to remain one of the most fascinating, important and down right excellent filmmakers in the business. In fact, I would go so far as to say that Lars von Trier is the greatest working director in the world right now. Just my own subjective opinion, but if I can't share wildly expressive opinions on my own blog then I might as well just give up.

Opening with a 10 minute prologue that begins with a close-up of Kirsten Dunst's pillowed face that then proceeds into a spectacular visual effects reel that I'm sure Terrence Malick would appreciate, Melancholia then splits into to halves: Justine (Dunst) and Claire (Charlotte Gainsbourg). Justine suffers from depression, this is plainly obvious once she wipes away the cute smile that audiences will recognise from Bring It On. Claire suffers from caring too much and her anxiety towards Justine, the rapidly spiralling wedding she helped organise (with a deliciously ridiculous Udo Kier!) and the lingering mysterious presence in the sky above.

The performances are universally excellent, with Dunst especially proving that von Trier's faith in her was well deserved (something that her lingering fans like myself knew was never a worry). Gainsbourg, the first of von Trier's leading women to return to the Dane's backlot of fun, is also wonderful as this nervous, tightly-wound woman. Manuel Alberto Claro's beautiful cinematography does wonders with shadow and light, using the idea of this foreign light-emanating source to create painterly pictures. The sound work and visual effects are also worth praising to the heavens.


No matter how much I was liking Melancholia, however, no matter how much it had impressed me, nothing prepared me for the gut punch that is the final scene. As von Trier's vision of a truly apocalyptic portrayal of the burden of depression comes to its natural, yet poetic, conclusion, there was something so deeply effecting that I found myself unable to breath. The final shot is certainly one for the all time lists in its brave, devastating imagery. Much like the rest of the film it will be something that lingers with me for quite some time and that is why I cherish Lars von Trier so much. A-

Review: New York, I Love You

New York, I Love Your
Dir. Fatih Akin, Yvan Attal, Allen Hughes, Shunji Iwai, Wen Jiang, Joshua Marsden, Mira Nair, Brett Ratner, Randall Balsmeyer, Shekhar Kapur & Natalie Portman
Year: 2010
Aus Rating: MA15+
Running Time: 103mins

One city, ten directors and a cast of familiar faces await audiences of New York, I Love You. This follow-up to Paris je t’aime, a surprise box office hit that saw famous directors craft odes to the city of love, will leave many disappointed. This so-called love letter to the Big Apple is a fizzer that doesn’t even come close to approaching the joie de vivre of its Parisian ancestor.

Read the rest at Trespass Mag

I am a New York "tragic", it's true. I have been twice - plan to go again in the next few years, hopefully/maybe - and I love movies to be set in New York. A movie such as The Exploding Girl can be so much better than it has any right to be simply by being set in NYC and allowing me to drown myself in the images and sounds. Barely any of the vignettes in New York, I Love You give that feeling of being surrounded by life like actually being in New York does. My favourite was the Maggie Q/Ethan Hawke sequence, which felt like a "New York Moment" more than, say, Natalie Portman's awful Jewish wedding piece.

One thing I mention in the review is the lack of any queer substance whatsoever. Watching the movie and I felt as if they were going out of their way to feature as many cultures and yet somehow gay people got left out. And in a film about the gay capital of the world (to be token and cliched). I also find it hilarious that the producers cut Scarlett Johansson's piece because it "didn’t jive with the rest of the shorts." I definitely think this film could have used more pieces that played outside of the box like it sounds ScarJo's did. Ah well. C-