The second installment of the horror-fantasy trilogy that famously outgrossed The Lord of the Rings in its native Russia, Day Watch stages a timeless war between good and evil in the snowed-in streets of contemporary Moscow. Edited in the high ADD style of the commercials and music videos director Timur Bekmambetov cut his teeth on, [...]
Eagle vs Shark
An Indie comedy from New Zealand that reeks of the Sundance workshop where it was conceived by writer/director Taika Cohen — which is to say it features a road trip, a quirky dysfunctional family, and a couple of awkward lovers who dress up in silly costumes. Eagle vs. Shark tastes an awful lot like Napoleon [...]
http://jurgenfauth.com/2007/05/17/eagle-vs-shark/
The Boss of It All
There’s a host of reasons why I make my modest living on the Internet and at the movies, but here’s one of the better ones: offices give me the creeps, and not just since the slapdash zoning violation filled with generator fumes and world-class drunks where I failed to catch a whiff of irrational exuberance. [...]
http://jurgenfauth.com/2007/05/16/the-boss-of-it-all/
The Wendell Baker Story
Proving once again the infinite mutability of the coming-of-age tale, The Wendell Baker Story, written by Luke and co-directed by Luke and Andrew Wilson, grafts a number of borderline absurd conceits onto a ramshackle story about a small-time con-man trying to make his way in the world. In the dappled sunlight of Austin, Texas, Wendell [...]
http://jurgenfauth.com/2007/05/10/the-wendell-baker-story/
L’Iceberg
Sort of like Dead Calm, but with mimes. This twee Belgian comedy tells an absurd love story about a freezer-burnt hamburger cook who goes searching for the perfect floating piece of ice. The film’s conceived by circus performers who turn each scene into a tableau for slapsticky visual gags. Endearing and intermittently brilliant, but overlong [...]
http://jurgenfauth.com/2007/05/07/liceberg/
Taxidermia
Yet another Tribeca dud, Taxidermia is one of the most unpleasant movies I’ve ever sat through. György Pálfi (Hukkle) directed this Hungarian Grand Guignol grotesquery that riffs on exactly three ideas: pig fucking, speed eating, and self-taxidermy. Based on short stories by Lajos Parti Nagy, the movie presents the fable-like history of a freakish family. [...]
http://jurgenfauth.com/2007/05/03/taxidermia/
Once
This sweet, lo-fi musical romance about a Dublin busker and an immigrant single mother who meet in the streets and record a demo tape together is a real charmer. Glen Hansard plays the nameless “guy” who belts out songs on a battered guitar and pines for his long-gone girlfriend; Marketa Irglova is the “girl” who [...]
http://jurgenfauth.com/2007/05/01/once/







