Amoeba Music

If you've ever experienced or witnessed the heavy and sometimes odd bond that two girls can have, you will enjoy (or remain bewildered after) seeing this movie. Set in the summer of 1973, Holly and Marina are two neighbors who become best friends in a small London suburb. Holly is the only child of a very conservative Jewish family where her mother and father are still married and highly involved in her progress as an intellect. Her best friend Marina's life serves as an excellent juxtaposition. Her mother is….well, picture a woman with the spirit of a 1930s flapper and the heart of a British teen in the '60s who chain smokes and likes Valium. Her father is a globe-trotting pilot who is never around and her older brother Nat is an attractive lad with a life of his own. The two girls take an oath that summer to be "one" in a place in their minds that they've named "Harina." As time goes on, the two share all of life's disappointments and thrills, but as the girls get older and things get more complicated, the balance of their friendship changes. Holly becomes the only positive force in Marina's unstable and self-destructive existence. And while she only wants happiness for everyone she knows and loves, Holly can't help redeeming her pact and getting involved with Marina's chaotic pastimes, nor can she snuff the growing passion she has for Marina's brother.

The actresses who play the older stages of these two girls are what put the icing on the cake. Holly is played by Michelle Williams—an excellent choice for a character who is a bit mousy, intellectual, and an old-fashioned romantic. Marina is played by Anna Friel, a charismatic and colorful actress who fits the part perfectly. By the time they've hit college, still living together in a flat with other roommates, they've experienced some of the best parts of being young, which include hard drugs and casual sex. The soundtrack of the film is an excellent addition to their exhilaration, and while it is looked down upon to have it be the one of the film's best features, the spirit of this movie survives because of the sounds of The Clash, Wreckless Eric, Scritti Politti, Echo and the Bunnymen, and other landmark artists.

We’ve all seen movies that circulate around addiction, whether it be substance abuse or recreational activities. The success of their messages can either scare the pants off an audience, urging them to never go down that path, or pull recovering addicts into a reminiscing spell. But Candy is somewhat different. Directed by Neil Armfield and co-written by the novel’s author, Luke Davies, it is a story more about the addiction of being loved and its consequences than of substance abuse.

Heath Ledger plays Dan, a sensitive, almost puppy-like poet who is addicted to heroin. Candy, played by Abbie Cornish, is an artist who falls madly in love with Dan and all of his habits, including the drug. Together they think they’ve found a bliss and complacency unlike anything they’ve ever experienced that would be the envy of any romantic, as well as a "secret glue" holding their world together. Though this euphoria is aided by the opiate, the real drug they fall under the influence of is their infatuation with one another.

The whole concept of being addicted to sex went over my head until I saw this film. Sure, I saw that the act could be something that people heavily desired, but it wasn't until after I saw an example that I was able to understand what many celebrities and political figures are trying desperately to confess in the public eye. I Am a Sex Addict is the hilariously simple and yet wholly autobiographical story of Caveh Zahedi, a director who decided to make a film about his struggle with sex addiction. After introducing that he has had two failed marriages on account of his addiction and is moments away from having his third failed marriage, Zahedi maps out his adventure, starting with his childhood, and openly discusses his parents' bitter divorce, which was based on infidelity. He also goes on a tangent in order to express the dreamy optimism of searching for a soulmate in every girl whom he encountered as a boy. From there it dives into confrontations with Anna, his first girlfriend and true love. Their relationship was based on "free-love" and polyamory, which eventually led to Caveh meeting Caroline on a trip to France and marrying her in order for her to remain in the States. After this ended his relationship with Anna, he returns to France with Caroline only to find himself entangled in a web of temptation when he discovers the world of prostitution.

At first, his desire to confront them is fulfilled by merely conversing with them, followed by the first step of his addiction, masturbation. It then goes on to actually performing sexual acts with them, while being honest about his indulgence with Caroline. This produces strain, so he then becomes dishonest with her, which ultimately ends their relationship. After learning nothing from those two women he meets Christa, a girl he thinks has finally accepted him for what he is. But as it turns out, their relationship also leads to destruction on account of his honesty. While with her he meets Devin, who also does not believe in monogamy and leads him to believe that he simply needs a better, more understanding girlfriend. But after leaving Christa to be with Devin, he realizes that Devin is an alcoholic and they too part ways in an ugly fashion. It wasn’t until his relationship with Devin that he discovered that all of his girlfriends were, in some ways, mirrors into his own soul, and that while he was not an alcoholic, he had the tendencies of one in terms of sex, and he eventually got help.

If I had a dime for every time I had to defend this brilliant film, I’d be a millionaire. The film is set in the red-light district of the early 1900s in Storyville, New Orleans—a time when prostitution was beginning to be looked upon as foul by the community. Brooke Shields plays Violet, one of three children who are being raised in the brothel in which her mother Hattie (Susan Sarandon) works and resides. The house also serves as a sort of hotel for passing travelers and is stumbled upon by a photographer named Bellocq (Keith Carradine). At first, he is only interested in the women in order to study how they live and to capture their beauty and charismatic wonder with his camera. But when the 12-year old Violet begins her initiation to join the ranks of the women there, he becomes trapped in a battle with his conscience to both stop the girl from having a future in the house and to hold off his desire to keep her for himself. As for Violet, she is, after all, only a child and offers no aid in helping Bellocq make the right decision. She plays on his affection as one would expect a vain, spoiled, and fatherless girl to do. The resolution that comes to these characters does so without any sort of satisfactory closure. You’ll still be thinking about the future of people like this long after you’ve finished the film.

Now, let’s get past the controversy quickly before continuing. Yes, Brooke Shields is a 12-year old portraying a child prostitute who is artistically nude in some shots, though never performing a sexual act on screen. To most, this would be considered child pornography. But let us remember this is Louis Malle we’re talking about—a brilliant director who has a gift for delivering complex coming-of-age films as honestly and true to life as one can in cinema. Let us also remember that this film was made in the '70s when artistic expression without limitations was soon to come to an end, especially in America. Lastly, for a person in this time period, the social requirements for whom you could marry and sleep with was as far removed from today’s standards as you could imagine. With that said, I believe there is a lot more than what meets the eye with this film. I believe that it is still relevant and important in our society, and is perhaps a visual image that pairs well with songs like "House of the Rising Sun."

May God bless and keep little indie films (in circulation). Sure, I understand that big budgets and campy plots are great mainstream selling points, but comedy is one thing that had started to become jostled by these guidelines, oftentimes coming out not so great in the finish. The Puffy Chair is awesome because it’s for those who can certainly be amused by what many modern comedies have to offer, but don’t necessarily find them to be funny. This film draws on the hilarity of good intentions and everyday scenarios in a tasteful and unrushed way that is warm and very admirable.

Josh is a good son, equipped with a sort of filial duty when it comes to his relationship with his dad. As a child, he remembers that his father used to adore a certain reclining chair that eventually retired to furniture heaven. While shopping on eBay, he comes across a near exact replica of it and buys it, mapping out a road trip from New York to Virginia with his girlfriend Emily (Katie Aselton). The plan is to pick it up and bring it to his father for his birthday and it's also a chance for them to learn more about each other and bond. While stopping along the way to say hello to his earthy and emotional brother Rhett (Rhett Wilkins), the two find out that they have much in store for their vacation once his brother invites himself along for the ride. In a tangle of morals, passions, and disagreement, the trip turns out to be a redefining slap in the face for all the things Josh thought were true and well. And while the film does take a break from comedy in order to let you get angry in some cases or sad with others, it is absolutely hilarious. If you’ve ever tried to do the right thing and have it all go wrong, leaving you questioning what is right, then this is a comedy for you.

The only magic I believe in is the magic of documentaries like this. It had the power to reach deep down into my soul and turn on a switch in a room that’s been dark for years. Honestly, it is the most beautiful love story that I have seen to date—a love of life, animals, dance, God, and intimacy.

Ron and Joy Holiday were two childhood friends who set out to make a name for themselves in the dance world, more specifically adagio ballet. Ron’s first few stories of Joy are small and candid, mainly circulating around her Catholic upbringing. One in particular that is essential to their future together comes from Joy visiting a Mother Superior with the uncertainty of whether she should continue her future in dance after college or become a nun. "Go to New York and dance for God," was the answer she received, and it was after that story that I knew this documentary had much in store.

The youth of many nations, especially industrial ones, are full not only of angst but of a yearning to fit in and be understood. For Yûichi and a group of followers just like him, the "ethereal" music of Lily Chou-Chou has become the center of their world, both in cyberspace and reality. Yûichi is the fan site manager under the code name "philla," where he reviews and praises her music with a sense of enlightenment and desperation. Like today’s youth, only anonymous and without photos, these young people drift online in order to connect and rave about the things they find most interesting, which for this group is Lily. But underneath the melodies and enchantment, Yûichi and other fans are still just homeless souls looking for adventure. Though Yûichi is really just looking for an escape, his reality grants him the total opposite. He and his actual friends occupy themselves with petty theft, a mysterious summer vacation, and several humiliating pranks that go terribly wrong. His world shifts into a tumult of despair and unkindness in what he calls "the age of gray," where all the color bleeds dry from the world. His only solace is a lush and isolated rice field where he goes to be alone and listen to Lily.

This advancement of newfound responsibility and savage energy reminds me of what it is like to become an adult. When you’re young, you almost worship your music idols and look to their sound for understanding and piece of mind. But for Yûichi and others, the pressure to find that same balance in reality becomes nearly impossible after you reach a certain age. Not that some can’t or others never did, but for him there is no turning back or resolution.

Metaphors are perhaps the greatest and most poetic way to express a concept or condition without heavy exposition in dialog. A good poem, for example, should never be clear in words alone, but with a trained eye, one should and hopefully can decipher what the work is getting at. When I first saw Woman in the Dunes, while watching it and after finishing it, I interpreted it as having many metaphors, one being commitment and the surrender that comes to people in terms of settling down. Also, it places the main character into an alien existence that is far removed from his conventional and vanity-filled comfort zones. The sand in this film also presents a metaphor of its own, but I’ll leave that for you to conclude.

Early Japanese cinema is a leader in this kind of poetic and classic storytelling. Also shot in black and white, films like Double Suicide and Akira Kurosawa’s Rashômon incorporate centuries' worth of idealism and culture into an hour and a half’s worth of wonder.

What do you get when you mix funk, hypnosis, boxing, hustlin’ and church? You get Let’s Do It Again, starring the Uptown Saturday Night duo Bill Cosby and Sidney Poitier and the ever-hilarious Jimmy Walker, who most know from the TV show Good Times. Apparently, this film is seen as a sort of trilogy with Uptown Saturday Night and A Piece of the Action, but I’ve only seen this one and have yet to blur in other films into its overall plot since it stands up great on its own.

Clyde Williams (Sidney Poitier) and Billy Foster (Bill Cosby) are two friends who desperately want to help their congregation, awesomely named The Brothers and Sisters of Shaka, who are in need of financial aid. In order to keep it from breaking apart, Billy refreshes Clyde’s memory of a time when they harmlessly used Clyde’s solider-derived knowledge of hypnosis to have a little fun and to make him see the advantages of using such a tool to place bets on boxing. The two come to an agreement and take what little money the congregation has in its savings and venture to New Orleans in order to bet on boxers, with the pressing deadline of the congregation's need in mind. There they scout out the most pitiful opponent, Bootney Farnsworth (Jimmy Walker) and hypnotize him into thinking that he is practically invincible. From there they place an astounding bet that Farnsworth will win his match against 40th Street Black. The plan works and the two win boatloads, returning home where they save their congregation and sit on easy street as local heroes, leaving behind angry and street-smart betters who know something fishy has happened.

For the sake of argument, let’s agree that catharsis can come from viewing tragedies. We watch movies circulating around slums and the darkest corners of imagination not only to get a clearer understanding of them but also because we come away feeling a little more alive and grounded in our own circumstances. But there is a unique squalor of America not found anywhere else in the world. A sort of squalor of choice or adaptation where people dwell in their own filth and close-mindedness willingly, and with perceptions that someone forced to live in such a way might not understand. So in response to this catharsis, I’ll be the first to admit that Gummo sort of hit me like a drug. Say, heroin for example. I couldn’t quite grasp what was going on, but in the trailer when I heard Madonna’s voice singing, “In the midnight hour, I can feel your power, just like a prayer, you know I’ll take you there…” over cigar-smoking, cat-torturing youth, a boy in filthy bathwater, a tornado and a happy albino woman dancing in a parking lot, I was pulled into a trial run. But since it also induces a fever-like edge of comedy, I’m going to write this review in the form of a mock prescription.

If you like to be pulled out of yourself in order to see the irony and falsehood of the pursuit of the "American Dream," Gummo might be for you. Set in the tornado-stricken city of Xenia, Ohio, it features the lives of two boys, Solomon (Jacob Reynolds) and Tummler (Nick Sutton), who spend their days killing cats to sell to butchers, riding bikes with mismatched parts, sniffing glue, having sex, and philosophizing about life in an eerie way that only a person living in this reality can. Their town is filled with strange and disturbing people who are rooted so deeply in their own bitterness, racism, and boredom that their actions can only be received as a cult-like unison of abandon and self-destruction. Chloë Sevigny plays Dot, who along with her sisters Darby and Helen, occupy themselves with a benign sense of vanity and seclusion similar to Little and Big Edie in Grey Gardens. Not exactly hard to watch, but still strange.