Set in 1991 Estonia, a country newly celebrating its independence from the Soviet block, Ilkka Jarvilaturi's City Unplugged opens as the national treasury, a sum of $970 million in gold, returns home to capital city Tallinn from safekeeping in a Parisian bank. A story immedi...
Like most of the trades and film online outlets, SM expected the SXSW 2008 lineup to arrive sometime this afternoon. Last night an early, unauthorized release by The Hollywood Reporter broke the news. Following is the list of selections and highlighted a handful of the ones we're pu...
Like so many sibling pairs, David and Nathan Zellner often finish one another's sentences. There's a fluid start and stop to their exchanges, as if what one stumbles to express, the other vocalizes with ease. They repeat one another as well, each an echo, and yet the two are immediately distinct. ...
While his friends spent record time with The Pistols and The Clash, teenage Sacha Gervasi scoured Sounds Magazine for upcoming metal talent. In 1982 he'd stumble on a band that hit marks of innovation potent enough to influence the entire style's movement. Fron...
A humble Neil Young approached the podium of the Eccles Theatre, his longtime friends and collaborators David Crosby, Graham Nash and Stephen Stills standing in support behind him. Addressing the anti-war issues of his poli-doc CSNY Déjà Vu, a record of the band's 2006 Freedom of Speech Tour, Young must have expected ...
A stark turning point in Brad Anderson's Transsiberian jars it from playing as a mildly gripping and intelligent thriller to a groan-worthy, melodramatic narrative disaster. Skiddish but still trusting American tourist Jessie (Emily Mortimer) just the night before and supporte...
Taking an old Shakespearean yarn and weaving it into a hip, energetic romantic-comedy with a few hard kicks, Bruno Barreto's Romeo & Juliet Get Married begs description by a plethora of seemingly trite and obnoxiously diminutive words. Adorable, sincere and heartfelt all immediately come to mind, each of those truly earned by Barreto's light-hearted yet still arty affair.
Only at the very end of Michel Gondry's Be Kind Rewind is there a glimpse of brilliance. As newbie filmmakers Jerry (Jack Black) and Mike (Mos Def) premiere their feature film for cast and crew in the soon-to-be-demolished Be Kind Rewind video store, a mass of local Passaic, Ne...
For all its captivating visual style, cinematographer Angus Hudson framing London landscapes in romantic, gray vistas and editor Scott Thomas manipulating time to accord perfect beats of suspense, Sean Ellis' The Broken lacks its promised thoughtful and shocking substance. More clever ho...
Scarlett Cinema's Pamela Kerpius catches up with filmmaker Lena Dunham. 
