Tetro

Francis Ford Coppola's first self-penned film since "The Conversation" (1974) is hampered by lack of forward momentum in a narrative of familial betrayal and rivalry. Filmed in lush black-and-white by cinematographer Mihai Malaimare, Jr. ("Youth Without Youth"), the story consists of a contentious reunion of brothers in Buenos Aires' artists filled La Boca district where would-be writer Tetro (Vincent Gallo) took up residence ten years ago after abandoning his family. Tetro's 18-year-old brother Bennie (well played by newcomer Alden Ehrenreich) unexpectedly arrives at Tetro's apartment dressed like a Naval cadet--he's fresh off a visiting cruise ship where he works as a waiter. Tetro has changed his name from Angelo to an abbreviated version of his last name Tertocelli after a falling out with his famous symphony conductor father Carlo (Klaus Maria Brandauer). Now living with his dancer girlfriend Miranda (Maribel Verdu), Tetro hobbles around on crutches recovering from being hit by a bus, and his condition adds to his character's metaphysical kinship to similar thematic material like Tennessee Williams "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof." Bennie's idealized vision of his brother quickly evaporates as he discovers buried truths revealed in Tetro's code-written manuscript that Bennie furtively deciphers. Coppola brings in flashes of color with flash back and musical sequences that give the film an operatic flare that tips the scales too much in a direction of self-aware commentary. Nonetheless, there is a communal joy in performances from the film's vibrant female cast members, that include Leticia Bredice and Sofia Castiglione. Stylistically, "Tetro" has its strengths, but it fails to connect with an emotional core before its overwrought third act comes crashing down.
Not Rated. 127 mins. (C) (Two Stars)

Severed Ways: The Norse Discovery of America

Minimalist independent cinema doesn't get much more low fidelity than debut writer/director Tony Stone's garish vision of 11th century Vikings discovering North America.Two lone Norsemen, Orn and Volnard, are the only survivors of their exploration group after an attack by Anenaki Indians wipes out the rest of their party. The two men chop down trees with a nordic fury reflected in the film's brittle heavy metal musical score from the likes of Judas Priest and Morbid Angel. As they slowly travel north and we witness them killing, cooking and eating various game before becoming separated when Volnard goes off with an Irish Christian monk to study his teachings. Tony Stone's unintentionally mocking attempt at inventing a poetic piece of bogus historical meandering is as overwrought as they come. Clearly inspired by Gus Van Sant's trilogy of time-in-the-desert films, Stone produces a similar cinematic dung heap.

(Heathen Films) Not Rated 107 mins. D- (Zero Stars)

Bullet In the Head (2008 New York Film Festival)

Glorified experimental student films don’t get anymore cheesy than Jaime Rosales’ movie that leaves out all audio dialogue as a way of distancing the audience from a non-existent story. The conceit might have worked if he had written it as a silent movie and included subtitles, but watching a middle-aged Spanish man going through the surface motions of his mundane life before committing an inexplicably violent act, is just a bore. "Bullet In the Head" was the weakest of the 18 films I saw at the festival.

Not Rated. 85 mins. (F) (Zero Stars)

The Exiles

Director Brent MacKenzie’s black-and-white documentary/narrative genre blender about urbanized Native Americans in 1961 Los Angeles is a cold glass of cinematic water drawn from the same well as Joseph Strick’s "The Savage Eye" (1960). MacKenzie uses editorial voice-over narration to elaborate on his reckless characters’ existential lifestyle during a night of carousing amid LA’s impoverished Bunker Hill neighborhood where the steeply inclined "Angel’s Flight" trolley car delivered passengers into the thick of its disenfranchised community. Bold in its visionary attempt to capture an essence of American Indian reality that is evermore significant today for its strangled condemnation of America’s betrayal of a people it murdered and displaced before such war crimes became articulated in our common vernacular, "The Exiles" is a one-of-a-kind film.

Not Rated, 72 mins. (A) (Five Stars)

Mister Lonely

If the future of American Cinema is, as Werner Herzog proudly states, Harmony Korine’s vision, then it is a tuna carcass dressed in a nun’s habit with a retarded white guy standing over it yelling obscenities. I admit to having loathed "Kids" (Harmony Korine wrote the script), I liked "Gummo" for its gothic humor, and I detested "Julien Donkey Boy" for being insidiously depressing. For "Mr. Lonely," I was just bored. Korine designs a purposefully artificial narrative contrivance with characters that are celebrity impersonators living in a rural castle in Scotland. Diego Luna is a Michael Jackson dance artist in Paris who strikes poses for money, and always dresses in costume. Michael’s already slim prospects diminish when he’s lured to an impersonators’ commune by a Marilyn Monroe lookalike (played by Samantha Morton). James Dean, Abe Lincoln, Madonna, the Three Stooges, Little Red Riding Hood, and a pockmarked Charlie Chaplin are some of the personalities Michael joins at the castle where the compound’s flock of black sheep come down with a disease that insures their necessary execution. Werner Herzog has a secondary role as a crazed Catholic priest who flies food-drop missions over Costa Rican villages, and he briefly commands the film whenever his unrelated subplot rolls around. Think of it as a cinema-of-the-infantile and you’ll be better able to stomach the utter boredom that goes along with Korine’s prepubescent logic.

Not Rated. 112 mins. (D) (One Star)

Brothers of The Head

"Lost In La Mancha" directors Louis Pepe and Keith Fulton take a flailing mockumentary shot at a convoluted narrative about a pair of conjoined twins-turned-punk-rock-duo. Based on the 1977 illustrated novel by Brian Aldiss, the movie mixes faux documentary and interview footage with the movie-time narrative to tell an incomplete story set in black comedy trappings. Band manager Zak Bedderwick (Howard Attfield) takes twins Tom (Harry Treadaway) and Barry (Luke Treadaway) from their impoverished life on England’s eastern coast to turn them into a pop music sensation called "Bang Bang." The punk rock circus act is sidetracked by the inevitable influence of drugs, alcohol and a divisive woman. The Treadaway brothers give inspired performances as the joined-at-the-side brothers and their sincere efforts, in the face of the filmmakers’ vague narrative intent, drives the entertainment element of the misguided picture.

Rated R. 90 mins. (C-) (Two Stars)