On Demand Weekly

On Demand Weekly provides new movie reviews of hot movies on demand and from the POV of watching from the comfort of your home. Today’s review: THE GIANT MECHANICAL MAN (Tribeca Film) .

THE GIANT MECHANICAL MAN

By Chris Claro

A tissue-thin romance that sags under the weight of its own whimsy, THE GIANT MECHANICAL MAN is a time-filler that looks as if it were assembled by spreadsheet rather than by a filmmaker passionate to tell story – The Giant Mechanical Film.

Lee Kirk’s debut feature as writer/director checks off all the boxes: a TV-star-with-indie-cred lead (Jenna Fisher, who is married to Kirk), a soulful male lead with proven chops (Chris Messina, VICKY CRISTINA BARCELONA), a couple of up-and-comers in support (Malin Akerman, WANDERLUST; Rich Sommer, MAD MEN), and a star in a quirky character part (Topher Grace, SPIDER-MAN 3). Throw in a South-by-Southwest-ready “post-rock” soundtrack featuring such performers as El Ten Eleven and shoot in a filmmaker-friendly tax-credit location – Michigan, which is neck-and-neck with Louisiana in the race to see how many of its cities can stand in for Anytown, USA – and boom! You got yourself a little flick.

Jenna Fischer / THE GIANT MECHANICAL MAN (Tribeca Film)

Not that there’s anything wrong with little. Slight stories about sad people can be finely wrought, as evidenced in the last year by both ROADIE and MAN ON THE TRAIN, each of which delicately depicted the ravages of loneliness. The issue with THE GIANT MECHANICAL MAN lies in its pallid, listless script which breathes no new life into its subject.

After Fischer’s Janice is axed by her temp agency employer, she is forced to move in with her insufferable sister and brother-in-law, played by Akerman and Sommer. At the same time, Messina’s Tim is dumped by his girlfriend, who’s fed up with his forsaking real work in favor of slathering himself in silver makeup and strapping on stilts to pose in local plazas as the Giant Mechanical Man.

On Demand Weekly provides new movie reviews of hot movies on demand from the POV of watching from the comfort of your home. Today’s review: THE FORGIVENESS OF BLOOD (IFC Films).

THE FORGIVENESS OF BLOOD
2 Teenagers Caught in an Ancient Blood Feud…
By Cynthia Kane

In THE FORGIVENESS OF BLOOD, we find ourselves in rural Albania, post Bosnian War/Kosovo conflict, in other words: now. Nik (Tristan Halilaj) is a teenager, the oldest son, popular and in love with a beautiful classmate. His sister, Rudina (Sindi Lacej) is the eldest daughter, a girl who loves school and learning, and dreams of a life outside the village. Their father, Mark (Refet Abazi) works hard, delivering by horse and wagon bread and whatever else he can provide the neighboring cluster of villages.

Then one day when he and Rudina are making the late afternoon rounds, he’s blocked from the through-road by an unruly neighbor from another clan. This man (Veton Osmani) who not only possesses lands Mark’s family once owned but humiliates him in front of Rudina – in a country where gender is still very much divided, this is unforgivable. When Mark and his brother, their uncle go back to confront the offending neighbor, violence breaks out and that man is killed. Rudina and Nik’s uncle is arrested and their father must go into hiding.

Worse still, the entire family must be sequestered as the old adage, “an eye for an eye” is utterly real in their world. Nik’s father, grandfather and other male members of the family know retribution is a fact. It’s an ancient law of blood feud. It’s derived from the Kanun, a traditional set of Albanian laws, conservative and ancient, still in effect, based on four pillars: honor, hospitality, conduct and clan loyalty.

It’s when you realize this is a film by an American filmmaker,

Joshua Marston, that you actually find yourself astonished.

His last film that hit big was MARIA FULL OF GRACE, some year back, which did incredibly well in festival circuits, was released theatrically via Fine Line and aired on HBO. He had a couple tries within the Hollywood scene that didn’t turn out and has directed a lot of good tv. And now, Marston takes us to another far away place: Albania.

How courageous and unique is this guy? Where does he get this chutzpah? I love that he can tell gripping stories from countries and cultures far from his own, and make them ring absolutely true. As a filmmaker he’s not only a talent, but a shapeshifter.

On Demand Weekly provides new movie reviews of hot movies on demand and from the POV of watching from the comfort of your home. Today’s review: CITIZEN GANGSTER (IFC Films).

CITIZEN GANGSTER
By Joe Charnitski

There’s good news and bad news about making a film that’s based on a true story. The bad news is that you are stuck with the events as they happened. Certainly artistic license can be used, but only to a degree. Ultimately, the story is what the story is.

Now, the good news is that, for the most part, you are free from worries about believability. Someone can’t say, “Aw, that would never happen” about a true story, truth being stranger than fiction and all that. It happened. It’s real. Deal with it.

CITIZEN GANGSTER, the debut feature film from Nathan Morlando, is based on the true story of Edwin Boyd, Toronto’s most famous post-World War II criminal (don’t ask me who their most famous pre-World War II criminal is). Boyd served his country in the war and came home to a menial job driving a bus. That job wasn’t going to be enough to feed his family, or, more importantly, Boyd’s insatiable desire for fame and adulation. Soon, he takes a bold move: he robs a bank. And off we go.

CITIZEN GANGSTER gets a lot of forgiveness because it’s based on a true story. For example, the film makes bank robbery appear to be the easiest profession in the world. You run into a bank, hop over the counter, smile at the girl who hands you a bag filled with money and you run, maybe after you deliver a one-liner. Also, Boyd (played by FELICITY alum Scott Speedman) sure takes to it very quickly. We don’t get the sense that he’s ever had anything resembling a criminal past, but he never has a doubt about robbing people for a living. But, I guess that how it happened, right?

Of course, the film is also stuck with the events as they occurred, and the way they decide to structure those events in the script doesn’t do the picture any favors. The repetition of heist, arrest, breakout, repeat doesn’t feel like a compelling commentary on the life of a crook. It doesn’t feel like much of anything really. Is Boyd’s wife really going to leave him? Will he reconcile with his father (Brian Cox as a retired cop)? Will Lorne Green offer him a part in his next tv show? All reasonable questions, I just didn’t care enough about the answers.

On Demand Weekly provides new movie reviews of hot movies on demand and from the POV of watching from the comfort of your home. Today’s review: BRAKE (IFC Films).

BRAKE
By Joe Charnitski

In Hollywood parlance the “high concept” movie is a film driven by one big idea, a bold concept, as opposed to propelled by character or even plot. For example, the high concept of THE TRUMAN SHOW is “one man’s entire life is a reality tv show, but he doesn’t know it.” “A weatherman is reliving Groundhogs Day over and over again,” is another example of a high concept driving a picture.

There are three requirements for a successful high concept movie: 1) obviously, a strong concept. You need the kind of conceit that elicits “oh, what a great idea for a movie” as a response; 2) the concept has to build, take fresh turns and keep an audience intrigued. Some big ideas are excellent in the first 10 minutes, but if you don’t know where to take the story, you’ve got a big “who cares” on your hands; 3) the payoff, the climax, the big reveal - it’s got to be good, surprising yet satisfying. The high concept poses a question, the end needs to provide an answer.

The claustrophobic action flick BRAKE certainly has a high concept: a secret service agent is trapped in a plastic box in the trunk of a car by terrorists intent on killing the President. He has information they want. They have his wife. What should he do? So, the first requirement is met. Unfortunately, it’s less successful with the other two.

Stephen Dorff (SOMEWHERE, PUBLIC ENEMIES) stars as secret service agent Jeremy Reins. He’s the guy stuck in the trunk. He wakes up in this predicament and assumes he’s been placed there because of gambling debts. Soon he discovers the much darker truth. Not only are terrorists trying to use him to assassinate the President. Not only are they threatening his wife. They’ve kidnapped another man, placed him in a separate trunk and kidnapped his family, too. Jeremy can save the lives of all of these people. He only needs to break the most solemn oath he’s taken: to protect the President.

On Demand Weekly provides new movie reviews of hot movies on demand and from the POV of watching from the comfort of your home. Today’s review: WE HAVE A POPE (IFC Films).

WE HAVE A POPE
Pope of No Where Village
By Sidney Falco

WE HAVE A POPE is a film that should be a lot more than what it is: mild entertainment at best – never more and, at times, less. It does have moments of charm and light-hearted touches in the direction, with performances to match, yet the picture never goes beyond the surface. It’s Hollywood-Lite storytelling (and I mean that in the worst way), only in Italian.

The plot: The Pope dies and the Cardinals gather together to pick a new Pope. Cardinal Melville (Michael Piccoli) is chosen against his wishes (never the front runner, according to the Press), and just as he is about to make it official and announce himself to the crowd in St. Peter’s square, he has a breakdown and refuses the job. Uncertain of himself, a Psychiatrist is brought in to find a solution for him, yet the Cardinal does not want to be Pope. Through a series of events, he decides to escape the Vatican and find himself.

With two of Italy’s foremost talents behind the camera, director Nanni Moretti and co-writer Francesco Piccolo, one would hope that they would use humor in the film to probe the psychology of Cardinal Melville (there are not 1, but 2 Psychiatrist characters!). Unfortunately, and this is where the picture really fails, the questions asked in the film by the writers about religion, Cardinal Melville’s role as a leader of a religion, along with the humanity that goes with that, never goes deep enough to get to any sort of genuine truth. There is a missed opportunity to make a profound comment about the duality of man, in conjunction with the role of religion in today’s society. All discussions about faith, man’s relation to that faith and oneself, seems to be handled with safety gloves

The territory which the filmmakers decided to explore in their story is a tricky one – there is very little humor in religion – it’s an (accepted) belief, no matter what your faith is, regardless of fact. So the question I asked myself when it was over was: what is the point? The film never offends or restores faith; it never scratches the bone. It falls in the middle of nothingness, relying on mild comedy to sustain the drama.

It’s not all bad. There is some appeal in a few scenes in the film, most notably, every scene with the Psychiatrist brought into the Vatican to question the Pop, who just so happens to be played by Moretti. His character brings life into the story, at least for a little while, before the narrative takes over to Cardinal Melville’s journey through the streets of Rome