The Final Take with Parker Mott

3.5 Stars out of 4
(124 minutes)

"I am not an elephant! I am not an animal! I am a human being! I ... am ... a ... man!"

I am constantly fascinated by films that personify the inhuman. Not to say John Merrick (John Hurt), or the Terrible Elephant Man as the epithet goes, is not a man. He is, but his face is like no man. It takes true conviction to feel sympathy for a character you almost immediately recoil at. But you do. The Elephant Man thus is a film both audio as it is visual, sad as it is hopeful, and frightening as it is inviting. (continue reading…)

3.5 Stars out of 4
(132 minutes)

John Mark Byers parades to the camera in "Paradise Lost 2".

“Paradise Lost 2 – Revelations” is called the “sequel” to “Paradise Lost: The Child Murders At Robin Hood Hills” from 1996. In ways this is a sequel, but more precisely a continuation of a story, another piece to the puzzle, the second document commenting on a life. But whose life? (continue reading…)

4 Stars out of 4
(151 minutes)

John Mark Byers consoles his wife outside the courthouse in this stellar, gut-wrenching documentary.

Paradise Lost: The Child Murders At Robin Hood Hills is a documentary about a trial that makes you want to scream for all the wrong and right reasons. Three murder suspects were given their justice and, as we are taught, justice is good. But how the verdict was decided is what makes the trial of the West Memphis 3 a tragedy in the courtroom, where justice may have been served but perhaps too carelessly. Paradise Lost examines, on a figurative note, the death of impartiality. (continue reading…)

3.5 Stars out of 4
(103 minutes)

Charlie (Cage) and Peggy Sue (Turner) find love in the past, though one thinks it's the present.

The title, “Peggy Sue Got Married”, is the worst choice Peggy ever made. It’s 1985 and she is on the verge of divorcing high school sweetheart Charlie, who has become an instant hit on television. Peggy, along with daughter Beth (Helen Hunt), goes to her high school reunion all stewed up that her fellow classmates will ask about the absence of Charlie. But Peggy receives more than she bargained for. After being rewarded queen of the reunion, she faints and then inexplicably wakes up in 1960, her grade 12 year. If you couldn’t guess, this is a golden opportunity for Peggy to change her history. Moral of the story: by the end, the title, “Peggy Sue Got Married”, is the best choice Peggy ever made. (continue reading…)

2.5 Stars out of 4
(92 minutes)

These clowns will make you laugh and cry.

The Clowns is a film meant for Fellini. His films were, in their own right, parades casted through a lively cinematic technique. All his characters were colourful, and put on wide smiles and dewy-eyed gazes. All they were missing were red rubber noses. The year 1970 was when Fellini would reflect on his obsession, not with film, but with clowns. He admired clowns the way Chaplin marvelled at the city lights. Both subjects would turn into a title of their later works. (continue reading…)

2.5 Stars out of 4
(90 minutes)

The Beaver abides.

The Beaver is a concept that must have put warm, gentle smiles on its producers the day it was introduced. That night I’m sure they laughed about it in their sleep. I mean, come on. A serious film about a talking beaver is rarely a Hollywood trademark, unless it’s an animated product. But the selling point is that this is the film to drag Mel Gibson out of his celebrity grave and make a film about a man who pulls through his mental illness and downs and outs. Life imitates art, or vice-versa. Inspiration on the surface, absurdity beneath accompanies The Beaver, a drama I suppose works better than it should. (continue reading…)

3 Stars out of 4
(77 minutes)

Brad Dourif is your atypical alien in The Wild Blue Yonder.

There’s a statement I’ve read that mystifies me: “Every work of documentary film is, in some ways, a work of fiction… and every work of fiction is, in some ways, a documentary.” How? Isn’t documentary embedded in reality and fiction just a pretence of it? Well, Werner Herzog has unwittingly proved such a paradox in his latest The Wild Blue Yonder, of what I declare is a beautiful lie. It’s a matter-of-fact document of something extraordinary, so it’s a real pleasure to suspend our disbelief. (continue reading…)

2.5 Stars out of 4
(84 minutes)

Point Blank is a quick sweat. No need for water.

Point Blank’s greatest strength is in fact its weakness: it’s only 84 minutes. Despite all its kinetic action sequences that whizz along like bullets, you barely feel it. It’s got the entertainment down, but the kind that resonates only for that purpose. I like my crime thrillers expansive, deceptive, twisty, and tricky. Point Blank is littered with conspiracy, but nothing that hasn’t been written to a tee in earlier crime flicks. This film’s simply worth it for the chase. (continue reading…)

3 Stars out of 4
(109 minutes)

The Devil's Double features a tour-de-force performance(s) by Dominic Cooper.

Uday greets Latif with kind eyes, wide-sparking teeth, and fancy cigars. His face is full of warmth, but you can’t help but assume there is fire blistering within. Latif staggers, highly hesitant to the offerings of the man before him, who most certainly has a scandalous reputation in Iraq. Their gestures have a sharp contrast, but they look uncannily identical. Uday asks Latif, the quieter one, to be his body double – his protector and brother. Latif refuses, but is then thrown in jail and forced to comply or his family will be sent to Abu Ghraib. So he does. Now, Latif Yahia is not longer Latif Yahia, but Uday Hussein – the devil’s double. It was an offer he couldn’t refuse. (continue reading…)

2 Stars out of 4
(83 minutes)

Nick (Eisenberg) and Chet (Ansari) take our money and run in 30 Minutes or Less.

For a slacker comedy, 30 Minutes or Less has a lot of chase. As for comedy, the number of laughs fit the title, except title it “30 Seconds or Less”. It’s got one of those absurd premises that conjures up the shenanigans of Woody Allen’s Take the Money and Run and the jagged-edged pacing of Michael Mann’s Heat. Put that all into a hot and lazy day in Grand Rapids, Michigan and that’s 30 Minutes or Less, a film that’s script is as thin as a flatbread pizza. (continue reading…)