The Playlist

Rome Review: Anthology Film 'Centro Historico' Is Decent, Wearying, Excellent And Slight, In That Order

By Jessica Kiang
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November 16, 2012 6:56 PM
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4 Comments

Festivals

Reviewing omnibus films, in which the component parts came from different directors, can be a tricky job because the decision needs to be made whether to review those contributions separately, or to take a helicopter view and treat a film which is being packaged as a feature, as a feature. "Centro Historico," which opened Out of Competition in the XXI sidebar of the Rome Film Festival, poses no such dilemma: the four films it contains are almost as different from one another as it possible to be, and so attempting any kind of synergistic look at the whole would be kind of a nonsense.

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Rome Review: Marjane Satrapi Gets Loose, Has Fun In Black Comedy 'The Gang Of The Jotas'

By Jessica Kiang
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November 16, 2012 7:55 AM
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0 Comments

Festivals

For her third feature film after 2007's beloved "Persepolis" and 2011's "Chicken with Plums," writer-director Marjane Satrapi changes it up once again with "The Gang of the Jotas" ("La Bande des Jotas") which bows today Out of Competition at the Rome Film Festival. Having made the move, with her previous films, from black-and-white animation, to stylized, heavily art-directed live action, here she throws both those styles out of the window and turns in a loose, black comedy road movie that feels, for the most part, about as un-stylized as you can get.

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Rome Review: 'The Motel Life' A Small But Perfectly Formed Indie With A Sweet, Sad Heart Of Gold

By Jessica Kiang
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November 16, 2012 6:14 AM
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4 Comments

Festivals

On the surface, there should be nothing particularly special about producer-turned-director brothers Gabe and Alan Polsky's debut, "The Motel Life," which premieres tonight at the Rome Film Festival. Threatening to sound like indie-by-numbers on paper, the film, based on the well-received novel of the same name by Willy Vlautin, is indeed familiar in its downbeat, disenfranchised Americana setting and even some of its themes: familial love, redemption and the fragility of hope in the face of ill-starred circumstance. But while it doesn't reinvent the wheel, or revolutionize the genre, it achieves its modest ambitions affectingly well, in no small part due to a clutch of cherishable performances, especially from leads Emile Hirsch and Stephen Dorff, as brothers Frank and Jerry Lee.

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Rome Review: Johnnie To's 'Drug War' Is A Gritty, Talky Procedural That Amps Up To A Bruising Climax

By Jessica Kiang
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November 15, 2012 2:45 PM
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1 Comment

Reviews

Johnnie To is a prime example of a director whose name means one thing to overseas audiences, and quite another to those in his native Hong Kong. While his home fans know him as a prolific genre-hopping polyglot whose production company Milkyway Image is a force to be reckoned with on the national filmmaking scene, abroad, especially in the U.S., he's primarily known as an action/thriller director; a less-stylized John Woo. And so his newest film, "Drug War" ("Du Zhan"), which was a late "surprise" addition to the Rome Film Festival line-up, should export neatly.

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Rome Review: 'A Glimpse Inside The Mind Of Charles Swan III' Displays The Flair & Flaws Of Roman Coppola's Approach

By Jessica Kiang
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November 15, 2012 7:02 AM
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5 Comments

Festivals

Roman Coppola may only be on his second directorial feature, but as a music video and commercials director, and as a writer and frequent Wes Anderson collaborator, not to mention handling the second unit on various films from his famous family members, he has certainly amassed a wealth of filmic experience. All of which he brings to bear on "A Glimpse Inside the Mind of Charles Swan III," which premieres tonight at the Rome Film Festival. Destined to be a crowd-pleaser, for its many celebrity cameos, quirky and apropos Liam Hayes music, and lovingly detailed 70s-influenced stylization, the films affords many glossy, knowing pleasures, and we found ourselves really wanting to love it. But that deeper level of engagement just didn't kick in for us, for two main reasons: the lack of a strong narrative through line and the lack of dimensionality to the central titular character. The film delivers on its title, but it turns out we need more than just a glimpse.

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Rome Review: Peter Greenaway's 'Goltzius And The Pelican Company' Dazzles & Numbs The Mind In Almost Equal Measure

By Jessica Kiang
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November 14, 2012 11:20 AM
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0 Comments

Festivals

Visually extraordinary, but narratively frustrating, "Goltzius and the Pelican Company," which showed here at the Rome Film Festival after premiering in The Netherlands, is every sumptuous inch a Peter Greenaway film. So those who are beguiled by the peculiar rhythms of his filmmaking -- which often give rise to a kind of tidal waxing and waning of the viewers' attention -- will be delighted by its richness, its erudition and its mischievousness. Detractors, however, may well be able to hold up this film as Exhibit A in the "too-clever-by-half" case against.

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Rome Review: Walter Hill's Sylvester Stallone-Starrer 'Bullet To The Head' Is A Blast From The Past

By Jessica Kiang
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November 14, 2012 7:54 AM
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5 Comments

Reviews

About as unreconstructed as it's possible to get, Walter Hill's first feature in 10 years, "Bullet to the Head," finds the veteran action director utterly mired in the tropes of the '80s R-rated action film. And we enjoyed the hell out of it. With nothing but the Himalayan crags of Sylvester Stallone's face to suggest the last 30 years of filmmaking ever happened, Hill has -- crafted seems the wrong word -- rammed together an action movie in which the plot is laughable, the quips are quippy and the action nasty -- no graceful, balletic, parkour bullshit here, just guns, fists, explosives and, gloriously, axes. This is gristly, muscly action, Stallone's aging sinews standing up remarkably well to the task of dispatching opponents fleshily against concrete, steel and marble surfaces when he's not simply shooting them.

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Rome Review: ‘The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn - Part 2’ Probably A High Point For The Franchise, Still A Low For Cinema

By Jessica Kiang
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November 13, 2012 5:58 PM
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20 Comments

Festivals

The final installment of Stephenie Meyers' 'Twilight Saga' has hit the screen with an audible, if Italian-accented "Squee!" here in its packed hormonal World Premiere at the Rome Film Festival. Destined to make a jillion dollars in its first six minutes of release, the film is already such a juggernaut that voicing an opinion on whether it's any good is a little like examining the fenderwork on the 20-wheeler that's bearing down on you at 100mph: it doesn't matter, because either way, you're going to be flattened. But hardy fools that we Playlisters are, we're going to damn well tell you what we think anyway: "The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn - Part 2" is as thrilling, scary and swooningly romantic as this series gets. But it's still dire.

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Rome Review: 'Marfa Girl' Hints At Larry Clark's Possible Evolution As A Filmmaker

By Jessica Kiang
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November 13, 2012 11:37 AM
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0 Comments

Festivals

Teenagers fuck, get each other pregnant, fight, take drugs, and are disaffected. So far, so very, very Larry Clark. But “Marfa Girl” which premiered at the Rome Film Festival last night, also foregrounds elements that haven’t historically cropped up quite so regularly in the filmmaker’s back catalog, like race relations, spirituality, and adults defined in ways other than their effect on teens, including, rarest of all, a functional and mutually loving parent/child relationship. It also boasts an intriguing structure whereby you might think it’s business as usual for the first two thirds, until in the final act, tension that you hadn’t really been aware of building comes to a head, almost the way you might expect in a genre film -- a psychological thriller or a horror perhaps -- as the bad guy gets what’s coming to him and the harmonious community is thus exorcised of its chief demon.

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Rome Review: French Rom-Com 'Populaire' Is A Chocolate Box Movie - Pretty, Sweet, May Cause Slight Sugar Headache

By Jessica Kiang
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November 13, 2012 8:27 AM
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1 Comment

Festivals

The Weinstein Company secured the U.S. distribution rights to “Populaire,” the '50s-set French rom-com that premiered Out of Competition at the Rome Film Festival, back in March, and it’s easy to see why. Boasting a chic, stylized period setting, dotted with bubblegum colors, sharp tailoring and lacquered updos, the film is the kind of undemanding confection that should prove a straightforward transatlantic sell, while its insouciant French-ness adds that bit of class that perhaps its nearest recent U.S. equivalent, “Down With Love,” lacked.

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