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'Fightville' SXSW Review: Exhilarating Doc Shows the Other Side of MMA

By Eugene Novikov (Subscribe to Eugene Novikov's posts), Posted Mar 17th 2011 10:00AM
Filed under: Reviews, SXSW Film Festival, Cinematical, Festivals


Michael Tucker and Petra Epperlein's 'Fightville,' which examines the unabating mixed martial arts craze, is an exhilarating sports documentary and a levelheaded, piercingly intelligent treatment of a touchy subject. It humanizes and makes sense of a sport that, for all I knew, consisted of putting two men in a cage and setting them loose to beat the crap out of each other to the delight of hordes of bloodthirsty goons. 'Fightville' demolishes that preconception. Not since Chris Bell's 'Bigger Stronger Faster*' has a documentary done more to contribute to an ongoing discussion about sports.

Which is all the more interesting since there is nothing on the face of 'Fightville' to suggest that it is interested in contributing to any discussion. Unlike 'Bigger Stronger Faster*', this is not an issue film. Instead, it functions as a profile of four individuals in various roles within MMA, all based in and around Lafayette, Louisiana: a trainer, a promoter, and two fighters. The movie follows them for 18 months as they make their way through the lower echelons of this brutal sport. (And whatever other preconceptions 'Fightville' may correct, it makes clear that MMA is brutal – it only takes a couple of minutes to get to a shot of a bloody and prone man being mercilessly pounded in the face by a thinly gloved fist.)
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'The Dish and the Spoon' SXSW Review: Greta Gerwig on the Verge

By Eugene Novikov (Subscribe to Eugene Novikov's posts), Posted Mar 16th 2011 1:00PM
Filed under: Reviews, SXSW Film Festival, Cinematical, Festivals

Greta Gerwig, who began her career collaborating with "mumblecore" pioneers Joe Swanberg and the Duplass Brothers, is rapidly becoming a national treasure. Pretty but unprepossessing, with a nervous manner and a reluctant smile, she seems like an unlikely movie star, and yet she seems on the verge of a major breakout. She was easily the best thing about Ivan Reitman's 'No Strings Attached,' and she has major roles in the forthcoming 'Arthur' remake and Whit Stillman's comeback film 'Damsels in Distress.'
Before boarding her train to fame and fortune, however, Gerwig stopped off to headline 'The Dish and the Spoon,' a tiny, prototypically indie two-character drama by Alison Bagnall (who is best known for co-writing 'Buffalo '66' with Vincent Gallo). In the opening scenes, Gerwig's character, Rose, is hauling ass somewhere in her diesel Mercedes station wagon. Distraught and cashless, she stops off in a convenience store to binge on beer and donuts. Eventually, she reaches a windswept beach where, seemingly confused and still upset about something, she climbs a lighthouse. On the third floor of the stone enclave, she finds a slight, soft-spoken, somewhat androgynous British teenager (Olly Alexander) passed out on a blanket.
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Scenes We Love: 'Signs'

By Eugene Novikov (Subscribe to Eugene Novikov's posts), Posted Mar 8th 2011 5:00PM
Filed under: Features, Cinematical


Recent alien-invasion movies seem to have forgotten that invading aliens are -- or should be -- scary. 'Skyline' and this weekend's 'Battle: Los Angeles' went the straight-action 'Independence Day' route. 'Paul' is a comedy; 'Cowboys & Aliens' looks like it will be an action-comedy hybrid. Who knows what the hell 'Transformers' was. It's a boring and disappointing trend, but it's also an excuse to look back at a movie that actually acknowledged the fact that an alien invasion would be an existentially frightening event: 'Signs.'

Everyone seems to have forgotten how scary 'Signs' was. Since the consensus on M. Night Shyamalan's career is currently unkind, what's most often recalled about the 2002 film is the silliness of the notion that a technologically advanced species of invading aliens would not be able to extricate itself from a pantry and would come unprepared for its intolerance of the most ubiquitous substance on its target planet.

These are fair but retrospective complaints, unlikely to occur to first-time viewers in the moment, especially when they're too busy creeping toward the edges of their seats. With its brilliant high concept (alien invasion as seen from the point of view of a single unassuming farm family), masterfully deliberate pacing, and brilliant use of off-screen space, 'Signs' is surely among the most frightening PG-13 horror movies of all time.
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Cinematical Seven: Religious Thrillers That Rule

By Eugene Novikov (Subscribe to Eugene Novikov's posts), Posted Jan 27th 2011 8:00PM
Filed under: Features, Columns, New Releases, Horror


One of my favorite scenes in horror film history comes at the end of 'Rosemary's Baby.' The titular baby has been delivered and promptly kidnapped. Rosemary, who has begun to suspect that the child is stashed away next door, sneaks into the neighboring apartment brandishing a kitchen knife. There what Polanski's brilliant film has spent two hours suggesting and insinuating is abruptly made explicit. Rosemary peers into the crib and shrinks away in horror. "He has his father's eyes," says Roman Castavet. Rosemary doesn't understand. Then, finally: "Satan is his father, not Guy! He came up from hell and begat the son of a mortal woman." The others in the room cheer, "Hail Satan!" Roman continues, delivering a crazed incantation that culminates in another hearty call and response: "Hail Satan!"

The scene epitomizes the allure and the potential danger of religious horror. 'Rosemary's Baby' and its progeny borrow from a narrative that many (if not most) people in the western world take very seriously. Even non-believers know the story, and come to the film with their own take on it. A lot can go unsaid, such as that Satan begetting a son is a really huge, apocalypse-portending deal. Done well, as 'Rosemary's Baby' most certainly is, this stuff can be immensely creepy. But it can also go south very quickly. Strike the wrong tone and you end up with something cheap and hokey rather than scary. Examples abound. 'End of Days,' anyone? 'Legion'?

'The Rite,' opening tomorrow, is a particularly interesting specimen, since it constantly tightrope-walks that line between eerie and cheesy. 'The Exorcist' is its obvious inspiration, and for good reason. Below the fold, we offer seven less canonical examples of religious horror that works.
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Their Best Role: Jennifer Connelly in 'Dark Water'

By Eugene Novikov (Subscribe to Eugene Novikov's posts), Posted Jan 12th 2011 4:30PM
Filed under: Horror, Cinematical, Best and Worst


Walter Salles' 'Dark Water' is just about the only good thing that came out of the plague of J-horror remakes that swept through Hollywood in the aughts. More: it is one of the most undervalued genre films of that decade – a lovely, hypnotic horror-tinged mood piece that got buried in a summer that gave us 'Revenge of the Sith' and 'Batman Begins.' Frustratingly, its greatest strength was often singled out as a flaw: rather than trying to develop a sense of danger, Salles instead filled every frame with an all-encompassing, otherworldly melancholy. It's not really about a ghost. It's about a woman who's trying like hell to be the good mother she didn't have – and is mortified at the prospect of failing.

That woman, evocatively named Dahlia, is played by Jennifer Connelly in the least strained, the most invested, and perhaps the most difficult performance of her career. Her work, while nearly always good, has never been this crucial. She is the movie's lynchpin and its sharpest instrument.
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The 2010 Underdogs: Poorly Reviewed Films That Deserve Another Chance

By Eugene Novikov (Subscribe to Eugene Novikov's posts), Posted Dec 21st 2010 8:00PM
Filed under: Features, Cinematical


In sports, rooting for the underdog is fun; with movies, it's torture. When a flick you like is critically panned, the common response among cinephiles is to assume a defensive crouch, ready to spring whenever the movie comes up in conversation. By now, acquaintainces pretty much know not to raise 'A.I. Artificial Intelligence' or 'The Village' in my presence.

Here, in that same friendly-but-cantankerous spirit, we submit for your consideration seven poorly reviewed films from 2010 that deserve a chance, even though the Tomatometer may suggest otherwise.

Alphabetically:

'Agora' (Alejandro Amenabar) – Alejandro Amenabar's modestly budgeted historical epic is grand, sweeping, old-fashioned entertainment as well as a stirring paean to rational thought and humanity's continuing quest to discover its place in the universe. Lukewarm reviews and a hideously botched domestic theatrical release by Newmarket Films doomed this movie to obscurity (it won't even be available on Blu-Ray), but please: if you catch up to only one 2010 obscurity next year, make it this one.
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'The Chronicles of Narnia' vs. 'Harry Potter': It's All in the Magic

By Eugene Novikov (Subscribe to Eugene Novikov's posts), Posted Dec 13th 2010 2:47PM
Filed under: Features, New Releases, Cinematical


Something has gone terribly wrong in the magical kingdom of Narnia. The new film adaptation of C.S. Lewis's classic 'The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe' was a moderately well-received charmer; 'Prince Caspian' showed diminishing returns; and 'Voyage of the Dawn Treader', judging by the reviews and last weekend's dismal box office returns, was not a movie anyone much wanted. What happened? Why did this eagerly awaited film franchise turn into such a bust, and how did American audiences so quickly lose interest?

I want to suggest that the 'Narnia' films, the third one in particular, fail as works of fantasy. They don't know what to do with magic, which is, after all, Narnia's defining characteristic. To see why this is, it's useful to compare 'Narnia' to 'Harry Potter', a more recent classic that has spawned a far better and more successful movie series.

In 'Harry Potter', magic is hard. It's both an art and a science. The characters spend years training to master it and bend it to their will; some never succeed. There are rules. Things go wrong: spells don't work as expected; potions have flaws and unpleasant side effects. In this universe, magic is more than a series of impossible things happening at the random behest of the plot. It means something; it has structure, and it gives the movies structure too.
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