ADULT WORLD
Charming, quirky, at times
very funny coming of age tale about an insufferable 22 year old poet recently
graduated from college. The tone is
gentle and the humor is clever despite one of the major plot elements being our
heroine’s employment in an adult bookstore (hence the title). John Cusack as a famous poet now a barely
getting by burnout has a number of good lines including the central theme – to
be an artist you must know something of life.
A nice film, perhaps a future cult movie.
THE ACT OF KILLING
This documentary’s slow lazy
pace at times undercuts the powerful imagery and even more powerful words of
the Indonesian paramilitary members (actually they’re just gangsters) who
participated in atrocities against communists or really anybody they didn’t
like in the 1960’s. The film uses the fantasy
re-enactments the former killers are participating in to get them to open
up. The end result is enlightening. I can forgive the limited amount of blame
assigned to the US (even though the CIA was very complicit in these murders) as
that would have made the film not so focused.
The conversation about how only losers go on trial for war crimes is a
great scene and very true.
7 CASES
The novelty of a thriller from
Panama is perhaps what drives this. I’m
not sure we’d be talking about this movie if it came from the USA. Of course, central to the plot here are
certain unique features of Panama, in particular the porters of the big outdoor
markets. There is some tension in the
story of a young man hired to transport seven boxes by wheelbarrow across the
market while being chased by a host of others including the police and other porters
who want the money they think is inside the boxes.
However, strip away these exotic elements though and it’s a pretty
ordinary thriller.
BUCK WILD
Another example of what
happens when a director gets a chance to make a film and chooses to fill it
with as much random nonsense as possible instead of focusing on one story. Ostensibly a zombie flick, there is so much
attempted wacky humor and drawn out characters then it takes quite awhile to
get to the zombie scenes. A forgettable
mess.
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