On Demand Weekly

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: SUBMARINO (Focus World).

SUBMARINO
Blessed is he who loves his brother….
By Cynthia Kane

Denmark’s Thomas Vinterberg (THE CELEBRATION (FESTEN), IT’S ALL ABOUT LOVE, DEAR WENDY) is one of the architects of the Dogme 95 film movement. In 1998, he was the hottest new filmmaker internationally; today he’s a much underappreciated talent, and his newest film, SUBMARINO proves this.

Based on the acclaimed novel by Jonas T. Bengtsson, this is a story about three brothers, one, little Martin, who has no chance. So much so that he dies within the first scenes of the film as a baby. Their alcoholic mother could care less. Fast forward twenty years and we meet two brothers who have never found forgiveness and have never forgiven themselves.

Many who have seen this film have criticized it for the realism it portrays. To me, however, it gives hope that Thomas Vinterberg has once again found his voice. Not since THE CELEBRATION, a film that was so unique, in-your-face, a film that made the audience so uncomfortable, but was brutally honest in its portrayal of a very dysfunctional family come together for the 60th birthday celebration of their father.

What THE CELEBRATION had brilliantly that sadly SUBMARINO lacks is the use of humor – dark and twisted perhaps – but while we’re roiling in shock, there is also relief for us in the madness and absurdity of this celebratory weekend.

Yet… where would VInterberg or any filmmaker include the humor in this story? I don’t know, and perhaps the choice to stay clear of it was correct.

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: VIPS (Focus World).

VIPS
So much larger than life, but it’s all true…an Anti-Hero for our times
By Cynthia Kane

Ever heard of THE ELITE SQUAD or THE ELITE SQUAD 2, two of the most all-time internationally successful films from Brazil? They have little to do with VIPS except for the fact that all three Brazilian films star the indefatigable, charismatic (and adorable) Wagner Moura.

This kid’s career’s going skyward,

just like his character in VIPS,

a film about one of the real-life top con artists of the century,

Marcelo Nascimento da Rocha.

Wagner Moura / VIPS (Focus World)

Moura plays this man, this Marcelo, who at various points in his life has been a police detective, a scout for the Brazilian national football team, a pilot, a pilot and a smuggler, the heir to the national airline, an international ji-hitsu champion, an music industry agent, and more, more, more.

This film focuses on his early years and his rise as a superb impersonator and con-artist. Like Steven Spielberg’s COME FLY WITH ME and like Leonardo di Caprios’s character, Frank Abganale, Jr, VIPS makes you delight in society being fooled, in the underdog getting away with criminal activity, but in a distorted kind of “Robin Hood” way... sort of. Both Moura and DiCaprio have that boyish, winning quality, a smile that makes you melt, a way of making you forgive their outrageous ability to lie and get away with it...most of the time. Both these films deal with bigger-than-life stories, but stories you can’t just make it - and maybe most of us wish we’d have that same chutzpah to get away with something, anything in our dull, everyday lives.

The story sets off when young Marcelo has had it with the torment he’s been taking in school and finds a way to embrace his classmates through impersonation. At night he dreams of his pilot father, a father who may or may not have ever existed or is simply a figment of his vivid fantasy world and energetic imagination. But on his mother’s hairdressing salary, there’s no money to go to flight school. This obviously doesn’t stop Marcelo. He makes it to a small airfield far from home in Sao Paolo where he’s soon bored stiff washing small crop-dusting planes and one day just takes off…flying.

As punishment, he’s dropped near the Brazilian-Paraguayan border where he gets to fly for a real job… and smuggle drugs for a big-time gang member. He takes on the name “Carrera” and becomes a favorite among the contrabandos – and no one seems to mind one bit that he’s got no pilot’s license. When he’s threatened by the cops and refuses to talk, he’s rewarded by the boss and sent home. But while it’s good to see Mom, it’s not the high life and soon Marcelo chomping to reinvent himself once again.

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: GNARR (Focus World).

GNARR

By Chris Claro

The kabuki theatre of American politics has long drawn performers from outside its world to perform on its stage – and, as anyone who’s watched the 7,000 Republican debates held over the last few months can attest, it most assuredly is a stage, so it’s only natural that personalities successful in other arenas would take a shot at running for office. Though writers and actors and folk singers have all made attempts to be elected – some successful, some not – it seems that comics are the ones who are truly drawn to the absurdity and irony of the political system.

In 1968, deadpan Smothers Brothers regular Pat Paulsen got himself on the presidential ballot in a few states and ran a campaign during one of the most tumultuous years in American history. More recently, Howard Stern made a semi-serious bid for governor of New York, dropping out only when he realized he’d be forced to disclose his earnings. And just this year, Stephen Colbert started his own super PAC and outpaced Jon Huntsman in the South Carolina primary.

Which brings us to Icelandic comic – yes, an Icelandic comic – Jon Gnarr. With a resume of sketch and standup, Gnarr decided he could run the city of Reykjavik more competently than the incumbent mayor and declared himself a candidate, feeling that his possession of a commercial driver’s license and his stint as an attendant in a mental hospital gave him the credentials. That seemingly impossible quest is the subject of GNARR, a new documentary directed by Gaukur Ulfarsson.

To face off against the “kleptocracy,” that had been running Reykjavik, Gnarr started the Best Party. Initially, he told the press he wanted the job of mayor so he could make a nice salary and use the city-owned summerhouse. He also promised to have a number of “broads” on his ticket and promised farmers a free night in a hotel room with one of their animals.

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: RETURN (Focus World).

RETURN

By Chris Claro

RETURN, written and directed by Liza Johnson, opens with a shot of a decidedly unglamorous Linda Cardellini (FREAKS AND GEEKS) as Kelli, in combat fatigues, warily ascending an escalator in an airport. As her husband and daughters greet her, Kelli appears both frightened and exhilarated at the prospect of her homecoming, returning to a familiar situation that has become alien. A National Guardswoman who keeps the goodwill of her friends and family at bay by reminding those close to her that “a lot of people had it worse” than she did, Kelli finds, as many movie soldiers have before her, that

coming home can be even more devastating

than going to war.

Linda Cardellini / RETURN (Focus World)

Johnson keeps Kelli’s story intimate, a finely-wrought character study of the stress imposed on a family when war tears it apart, if only temporarily. Within days of her return Kelli angrily quit her job, begins to suspect her husband of having an affair, and finds herself in rehab to avoid jail. When her behavior puts her kids in danger, her husband has no choice but to leave with them.

John Slattery / RETURN (Focus World)

Cardellini plays Kelli as someone dealing with intense pain, but displacing it and in the process, alienating everyone around her. Cardellini’s portrayal is subtle and nuanced, delineating Kelli’s despair without spelling it out. She foregoes histrionics in favor of suppressed rage as she pushes away friends, family, and employers, finding a kindred spirit only after she’s thrust into rehab, in fellow veteran Bud. Played, in a true departure from his MAD MEN persona, by John Slattery, the shambling, easygoing Bud recognizes the turbulence that plagues Kelli and their scenes together are some of the film’s most affecting.

Linda Cardellini, Michael Shannon / RETURN (Focus World)

From Focus Features, the premiere global brand in original and daring cinema, comes Focus World.

Charged with finding the most exciting voices in international and independent film, Focus World is proud to bring you WORRIED ABOUT THE BOY, the incredible life story of 1980’s pop-punk music sensation, Boy George.

Upon finishing high school, George O’Dowd (Douglas Booth, THE PILLARS OF THE EARTH) falls in with the wild members of the budding New Romanticism movement in London. After endless nights out at glitzy clubs alongside musicians, George starts his own band with the dream of stardom. However, with the glamour and drug addiction that accompanies celebrity status, can George find the true happiness he so desperately craves? In this truthful drama from acclaimed British director, Julian Jarrold (BECOMING JANE), Douglas Booth brings a powerful performance to the screen, backed by a stellar cast, including Marc Warren (HUSTLE).

WORRIED ABOUT THE BOY Premieres On Demand April 10, 2012.

See The WORRIED ABOUT THE BOY Trailer Exclusively. Click Below ... 

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