Movies and Mental Illness

What Film Would Win If Psychologists Gave Out Academy Awards?

2011-03-02T16:37:00.001-06:00

March 02, 2011

What Film Would Win If Psychologists Gave Out Academy Awards?

The decision to add selected psychologically relevant films to PsycCRITIQUES (a practice introduced by E. G. Boring, the first editor of Contemporary Psychology) has been widely applauded, and many readers report they read the film reviews before turning to the more pedestrian reviews of books.

Some of the films that have been (or will be) reviewed in PsycCRITIQUES include The Secret in Their Eyes, Solitary Man, Black Swan, Peacock, Inception, The Social Network,Life During Wartime, Temple Grandin, Skin and The Kids Are All Right.

If you were organizing awards for psychologically relevant films, which movies would you nominate?

Read the Reviews

No Man Is an Island, or Is He?
By Meera Rastogi
PsycCRITIQUES, 2011 Vol 56(8)

A review of the film Solitary Man

Of Two Minds
By Etzel Cardeña [and] Sophie Reijman
PsycCRITIQUES, 2010 Vol 55(51)

A review of the film Peacock

The Tenacity of an Idea
By Keith Oatley
PsycCRITIQUES, 2010 Vol 55(50)

A review of the film Inception

A Life With Autism
By Donald Oswald
PsycCRITIQUES, 2010 Vol 55(44)

A review of the film Temple Grandin

A Roller-Coaster of Intelligences
By Jeremy Clyman
PsycCRITIQUES, 2010 Vol 55(49)

A review of the film The Social Network

Muddling Through
By Steven N. Gold
PsycCRITIQUES, 2010 Vol 55(39)

A review of the film The Kids Are All Right

When She Was White: The Value of White Skin During Apartheid
By Kellina M. Craig-Henderson
PsycCRITIQUES, 2010 Vol 55(43)

A review of the film Skin

Unforgiveable
By Keith Oatley
PsycCRITIQUES, 2010 Vol 55(48)

A review of the film Life During Wartime

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Antichrist

2010-12-25T13:55:00.001-06:00

If you've heard anything about "Antichrist," then my telling you that it's beautiful probably sounds like an act of willful intellectual perversity. Very likely you've heard a list of gruesome highlights that make it sound like a nasty Internet video from Lithuania: an explicit sex act so violent that the man ejaculates blood, a hole driven through someone's leg with a power tool, a woman mutilating her own genitalia with a pair of scissors.

Those things all happen in the movie's grotesque final act, and they are undeniably shocking (and meant to be). Taken together, they probably account for a minute or so of screen time, about 1 percent of the movie. They don't define or encompass "Antichrist" any more than "The Godfather" can be boiled down to that severed horse head. In fact, I'd argue that these scenes of violence are far from being the worst scenes in the movie. They emerge from von Trier's original desire to make something close to a conventional horror film -- you can see traces of "The Shining" and "Rosemary's Baby" in "Antichrist" -- and they're only superficial or symbolic representations of the real violence between the unnamed central couple, played by Willem Dafoe and Charlotte Gainsbourg.

You're gonna miss me, baby... when I'm gone

2010-12-25T13:49:00.000-06:00

Roky Erickson endured a lot at the mental hospital he was sent to. Electric shock therapy, countless 'legal' experimental drugs, and the kind of four-white-walls atmosphere that is created to contain madness, not cure it. When Roky was finally released, he wasn't the same guy, but he was functioning. Moreso, he was functioning enough to restart his musical career in an entirely new direction, with a sound that once again broke all the rules. Sure, the words were all about demons in his head, but the records sold and the people paid to watch. For a while.

Fast forward a few years and we meet Rocky's future self; a schizophrenic individual in a house filled with clutter, with radio antennaes hanging off every piece of table space, and everysingle appliance in the house on at the same time. Sitting peacefully among the high-volume din, Rocky seems content among the racket, as if the collective sounds from three strereos, two TV's, kitchen appliances and even a video camera had blocked out the voices in his head at last. His aging mother, showing ample signs of delirium herserlf, works hard to look after her son, but ultimately just doesn't see that she's enabling his sickness, rather than fighting it. Rocky degenerates, and his mother isn't far behind him when the youngest son of the Erickson family decides enough is enough.

It's Kind of a Funny Story

2010-10-17T21:59:00.000-06:00

A depressed teenager checks himself into a mental ward, sees how crazy everybody else is - "My bed's on fire!" - and feels suddenly cured. But he finds out that, no, sorry, he cannot leave. He must stay for a legally mandated five days.
When he is told this, he is understandably crestfallen, and so are we in the audience. We know: If he's not getting out, we're not either, and at first the prospect of a long stretch doesn't seem promising. How on earth will he fill the time? How will the filmmakers? How will the audience? And then gradually, what seems awful becomes human, what seems foreign becomes familiar, and about halfway into this sincere and surprisingly lovable movie, a vacation feeling sets in. He doesn't want to leave, and neither do we.

Shutter Island

2010-06-20T07:24:00.002-06:00

. . . . Between the psychopaths, the psychiatrists and the skeletons in Teddy's closet, the line between reality and delusion, sanity and insanity, soon begins to blur. It is here that the film really begins playing around with the psyche, both Teddy's and ours, though the agenda is laid out from director of photography Robert Richardson's first images of Teddy reeling from seasickness in the claustrophobic latrine of the prison ferry on the ride over -- tortured eyes looking back at us from the mirror as he splashes water onto his face.
. . . .
Whether it's a rushed dénouement or a tendency to overindulge in delusions, the flaws are never enough to do permanent damage to the film. Ultimately, Scorsese has given us a new noir classic, though watching Di- Caprio's Teddy twist in the wind while his mind unravels would be satisfying enough.

Revolution #9

2010-05-02T08:20:00.004-06:00

Tim McCann's "Revolution #9" is a taut, intelligent psychological drama that effectively plays one nightmare against the other: the first being a Manhattan freelance writer's (Michael Risley) descent into schizophrenia and the other being the ordeal his fiancée (Adrienne Shelly) plunges into when she tackles the woefully inadequate mental health bureaucracy in her desperate attempt to get him some help. In regard to the second element, McCann exposes rather than preaches, and his film is the very model of the forceful, no-frills low-budget New York independent production.

Heath Ledger’s Joker 'exacerbates stereotypes about mental health'

2009-08-24T16:14:00.000-06:00

Hollywood shows schizophrenics and those with other mental illnesses only as either stupid or evil, according to a new report for the Time to Change Campaign, which is backed by the Mind and Rethink charities.
The latest Batman film, for which Ledger won a posthumous Oscar, is criticised for pandering to a false stereotype of schizophrenics, that they have split personalities.
. . . .

A survey of 1989 people, commissioned for the report, found that 49 per cent had seen people with a mental illness acting violently on screen.
In total, 44 per cent of those asked believe that people with mental illnesses are more prone to violence.
Sue Baker, Director for Time to Change, said: “This report highlights that movies are the main source of information that reinforces negative stereotypes of mental illness above and beyond any other form of media.
“We need to make it clear to directors and producers that they can still break box office records without wrecking lives.”

Rachel Getting Married

2009-08-20T20:04:00.000-06:00

Kym (Anne Hathaway) has arrived home from rehab on the day before the wedding of her older sister, Rachel (Rosemarie DeWitt). A junkie since her teens, Kym has been clean for nine months, but her sobriety has not altered her basic personality. Kym is flamboyant and self-centered, but there is a deep core of pain and guilt within her that no amount of bluster and bravado can entirely conceal. Her overprotective father (Bill Irwin) hovers around her like a mother hen. She causes a scene when she learns that Rachel has chosen her best friend, Emma (Anisa George), to be the maid of honor. And she looks forward to the rehearsal dinner so she can be reunited with her superficial mother (Debra Winger).
The wedding might be all about Rachel, but the movie is all about Kym. She is a complicated, volatile individual with obvious bipolar tendencies. Her instability provides a source of dramatic tension, but it never feels forced or artificial.

Shrink (Sundance Reviews)

2009-07-24T19:31:00.002-06:00

Shrink follows the story of Henry Carter (Kevin Spacey), a Los Angeles psychiatrist with an A-list clientele, including an aging actress (Sapphron Burrows), an insecure young writer (Mark Webber) and a comically neurotic, obsessive-compulsive power agent (Dallas Roberts). Having just lost his wife to a suicide, Henry finds it difficult to treat his patients as his own belief in humanity begins to erode. That is, until he takes on the pro-bono case of a troubled teenage girl from a bad part of town. In treating this new patient, Henry begins to question whether or not his current state of mind is right for the treatment of patients. If he himself cannot come to terms with his troubled situation, how can he possibly “fix” others?

Seven Pounds is a Provocative and Controversial Film About Suicide

2009-07-14T14:42:00.002-06:00

Although Christopher Orr in a review in the New Republic is quasi-evasive in addressing the particulars because, as he puts it, “much as I’d like to spoil it, I won’t,” there is no question that his criticism of Seven Pounds centers on its ending, in which Smith’s character dies by suicide, a trope which Orr calls “morally grotesque.” His verdict:

Seven Pounds is … a dour, morally beclouded film that confuses generosity and grief, self-abnegation and self-annihilation. Yes, it comes prettily wrapped as the package of holiday uplift it fatuously imagines itself to be. But this is a present best left unopened.
Suicide Prevention News and Comment

Oldboy

2008-06-01T21:38:00.002-06:00

Admit it: your local multiplex is a creative dead zone. So line up for Oldboy, an explosively exciting psychosexual revenge drama from Korean powerhouse Park Chanwook (Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance) that makes movies feel alive again. I won't spill the beans, but know this much: Choi Min-sik is a hell-raising wonder as Oh Dae-su, a skirt-chasing businessman with a wife and daughter who matter less than his next drink. Suddenly, this good oldboy is locked in a hotel room with a TV that tells him he's been accused of his wife's murder. Fifteen years later, Dae-su finds himself in a trunk on a rooftop -- a free man.

At a sushi bar -- in the first of the film's scenes during which the squeamish are meant to duck for cover -- Dae-su chomps down on some live, wiggling squid. The sympathetic young waitress, Mido (Gang Hye-jung in a strikingly vivid performance), takes him home, and he jumps her bones with the same vigor he showed the squid.

In the bloody set pieces that follow, the mystery captor (Yoo Ji-tae) gives Dae-su five days to figure out his identity, setting off a series of rampages that spray the screen with blood and shocking secrets. As always with Park Chanwook, you just hold on and let him rip.

Wristcutters: A Love Story

2008-01-17T17:50:00.001-06:00

When strangers meet in "Wristcutters: A Love Story," there's none of the usual chitchat about where they're from or what they do for a living. Instead, people cut right to the core of their bizarre circumstances with the question, "So how did you off yourself?"
Characters in this quirky but surprisingly lighthearted dark comedy are all suicide victims. A pitch-perfect absurdist tone is set in the opening scene of Zia (Patrick Fugit) slitting his wrists over a love affair gone sour after first fastidiously cleaning his bedroom and watering his plants. His pal Eugene (Shea Whigham) electrocutes himself while playing electric guitar with a rock band. Other more conventional means to the same end flash by, such as a hanging and a head in an oven.

HOWEVER,
Officials at a top US suicide prevention group are failing to see the funny side of billboard ads for a new comedy that show people killing themselves. Acclaimed indie movie Wristcutters: A Love Story follows a group of people who have taken their own lives, as they take a trip through purgatory. The film, starring Patrick Fugit and Shannyn Sossamon, has won a handful of top indie film prizes in America, but the director of the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention is not a fan of the film, or its marketing campaign. In a letter to producers, Robert Gebbia says, "You don't see people making fun of other causes of death, but you see it with suicide and mental illness." But producer Courtney Solomon isn't planning to pull the ad campaign, stating, "The movie's message is that love is better than suicide. Our job is to get people into the theatre in a way that's accessible to them. There are many different ways to skin a cat. God forbid someone was considering committing suicide. This film may change their opinion."

Prime (2005)

2008-01-06T08:51:00.000-06:00

Rafi Gardet (Uma Thurman) is a 37-year old woman who, on the rebound from a messy divorce, finds herself head-over-heels in love with Dave Bloomberg (Bryan Greenberg), a man 14 years her junior. And, as if the age gap is not enough, Dave is Jewish while Rafi is not. This doesn't mean much to Dave, but it's an issue for his mother, Lisa (Meryl Streep), who can't bear to think about her son in love with someone who isn't Jewish. Rafi confides all the intimate details of her new love affair with her therapist - the same Lisa Metzger who is Dave's mother. Both women are unaware of their non-professional connection until Lisa figures it out. At that point, she has a dilemma: terminate her sessions with Rafi or do her best to keep her composure and continue the therapy.

The Ground Truth (2006)

2007-12-15T15:14:00.000-06:00

Amid the continuing deluge of documentaries about the war in Iraq, Patricia Foulkrod’s film “The Ground Truth” stands out as an especially pointed indictment of the American military’s treatment of its own people on and off the battlefield.

The film also addresses deeper questions about modern methods of creating efficient soldiers and their long-term consequences. It asks: how could anyone imagine that the intensive molding of human beings into killing machines wouldn’t affect the rest of their lives? . . . .

One soldier after another recalls being encouraged by senior officers not to distinguish between civilians and the enemy. The film’s most gung-ho marine, who went to Iraq for the thrill of combat, recalls his personal turning point: when he killed an Iraqi woman who was approaching his tank only to discover afterward that she was clutching a white flag. Another tells of being screamed at by an Iraqi civilian carrying his brother’s head, which had just been blown off.

New Movie on the Work of Ellen Langer

2007-12-15T10:09:00.000-06:00

The spotlight of Hollywood will soon shine on the Harvard psychology department.

“Friends” star Jennifer Aniston is set to portray Harvard Professor of Psychology Ellen J. Langer in a new movie about the professor’s life and studies, according to The Hollywood Reporter. . . .

“The research...means a great deal to me so the most exciting part is the possibility that it will reach a larger audience,” she wrote. . . . .

In the study, described in Langer’s 1989 book, “Mindfulness,” Langer placed a group of elderly men in a setting that convinced them the year was actually 1959.

The magazines, newspapers, and music the men saw and heard were all 20 years old and the men themselves were told to behave and talk as if it were 1959.

The men’s physical behavior followed their psychological convictions. Over the course of a week, signs of aging appeared to reverse and the men looked visibly younger. The subjects’ joints became more flexible, their posture straightened, and the lengths of their fingers, which typically shorten with age, actually increased. . . .

Langer said that Aniston, and others, may be attracted to her research because “the results are positive, hopeful, and very unusual.”

Beautiful Boxer (2003)

2007-12-02T08:12:00.000-06:00

Goodness and brutality coexist throughout "Beautiful Boxer.'' An unforgiving sport using elbows and knees as well as feet and fists, Thai boxing provides Toom, a poor boy from a northern province, with amazing opportunities. He can support his parents and eventually pay for a sex-change operation. Along the way, however, his fighting career assumes greater meaning. The more his opponents tease him about his appearance, the harder he kicks. He's fighting for prize money, but also for the right to be different.

Lars and the Real Girl

2007-10-28T11:56:00.001-06:00

Lars and the Real Girl is a sweet, soulfully acted fairy tale about a social misfit and the town that loves him. Director Craig Gillespie (Mr. Woodcock) and a gifted cast treat Nancy Oliver’s delicate screenplay with the same respect the characters treat Lars’ unusual new girlfriend, and therein lies the charm. What could have been cloying or absurd is instead endearing, even if the film is somewhat too long for its conceit.Holding the film together is Ryan Gosling’s remarkable ability to give an introverted, delusional character charisma. As evidenced in his complex portrayal of the anguished teacher in Half Nelson, as well as in earlier films, Gosling disappears into his roles. His performance as Lars, a severely shy, child-like man living in the garage apartment behind his brother’s house in a wintery Midwestern town, is subtle, surprising and tremendously affecting.

Grey Gardens

2007-09-03T18:19:00.000-06:00

Grey Gardens is a recently re-released cult film that illustrates folie à deux, a shared delusional disorder. The deterioration of the old house in East Hampton parallels the deterioration we observe in the mother and daughter who grow old together, isolated and estranged and more than a little odd. It is a useful learning experience to watch the film with the DSM-IV in hand.

Sicko Review (The New Yorker)

2007-07-21T13:14:00.000-06:00

Just this year, in my own surgical practice, I have seen a college student who couldn’t afford the radiation treatment she needed for her thyroid cancer, because her insurance coverage maxed out after the surgery; a breast-cancer patient who didn’t have the cash for the hormone therapy she needed; and a man denied Medicare coverage for an ambulance ride, because the chest pain he thought was caused by a heart attack wasn’t—it was caused by a tumor. The universal human experience of falling ill and seeking treatment—frightening and difficult enough—has been warped by our dysfunctional insurance system.

Asylum

2007-07-17T16:27:00.000-06:00

Natasha Richardson glides through the film version of Patrick McGrath's novel "Asylum" in various states of fear, desire and undress, a swan among Yorkshire frumps. As this placid tale of mad love unfolds, charting an affair between the wife of a mental hospital administrator and her brooding, Heathcliffy lover, Richardson—who is 5 foot 9, according to various unimpeachable Internet sources, but in "Asylum" looks to be about nine feet tall—towers over her repressed lessers, a lightning rod in summer whites. Set in 1959, the story begins as Stella Raphael (Richardson) arrives in her grim new surroundings alongside her tightly buttoned husband Max (Hugh Bonneville) and their solitary 10-year-old son, Charlie (Gus Lewis). The marriage iced over years ago. We hear of Stella's past indiscretions, which Max clearly hasn't forgotten or forgiven.Any hope of newfound peace is shattered by a charismatic aesthete in Stella's midst, sculptor Edgar Stark (Marton Csokas), pet patient of one of Max's associates. Playing Dr. Peter Cleave, a subtly devious character specializing in "sexual pathology and its assorted catastrophes," Sir Ian McKellen finesses the tiniest of pauses like someone who deserves a second knighthood just for his timing.

Copycat

2007-05-28T22:14:00.000-06:00

Helen is an agoraphobiac recovering from a nervous breakdown. She hides inside her apartment, connected to the Internet while downing pills and booze in roughly equal quantities. She's useless to herself or anyone else. Then the police, led by Mary Jane Monahan (Holly Hunter) and Reuben Goetz (Dermot Mulroney), arrive at her door. They need help tracking a serial killer who has been terrorizing young women in the San Francisco area, and who better to go to than an expert with 20 years of having "serial killers on the brain"? Although at first reluctant, Helen eventually relents and lends her experience to the investigation. Her first contribution is to identify the killer as a copycat. He is mimicking the great serial killers -- the Boston Strangler, Son of Sam, the Hillside Strangler, Dahmer, and Bundy -- and there's no way to tell who or how he will murder next.

Away From Her

2007-05-28T22:09:00.000-06:00

The woman is still sharp enough to grasp what's happening to her, at least sporadically, but the rest of the time she's lost in a fog, confused by the most commonplace situations, forgetting how to pronounce the simplest words.

Fiona is losing her mind (one of the more painfully apt phrases in the English language), and as her memory vanishes, Away From Her sets itself the task of examining what remains. In lesser hands this could easily have become treacly, even tedious going, but Away From Her turns out to be that rare, small film that packs an uncommonly large punch.

Harsh Times

2007-05-14T10:40:00.000-06:00

As if transfixed by a role that matches in emotional extremes the physical extremes he embraced in "The Mechanist," Bale takes possession of his crazed character here to an alarming degree. Haunted by Gulf War memories, his Jim Davis is still perfectly capable of dressing in coat and tie and putting on a responsible, civilized front, as well as of convincing his south-of-the-border girlfriend that he loves her and will get her a visa to come to the U.S.

But left to his own devices, Jim is a world-class screw-up, an overloaded circuit of nasty attitudes, devilish intentions and antisocial and illegal proclivities whose only predictable trait is to incite confrontation and violence. . . .

As a study of mental imbalance and living two lives at once, Bale's work here can be placed on the same shelf as his chilling performance in "American Psycho." Actor's investment in Jim Davis seems complete, his transformations between the two sides of his personality seamless and frighteningly convincing.

Snow Cake (2006)

2007-04-29T20:54:00.000-06:00

Sigourney Weaver -- an actor with extraordinary wit and smarts -- playing a woman with autism, a woman whose way of experiencing the world has very strictly delineated limits, in Marc Evans' "Snow Cake." Weaver's character, Linda, is independent: She lives in a house of her own, in the small, snowy town of Wawa, Ontario, and has a job stacking shelves at a local grocery store. She's reasonably capable of carrying on a conversation, although her social skills are virtually nonexistent. When a stranger, an Englishman traveling through Canada named Alex (Alan Rickman), shows up at her house, she says, mechanically, "I'm supposed to offer you a cup of tea," as if she were remembering something that had been drummed into her in a classroom long ago. She shows little emotion and lacks compassion for others. She's childlike at times, gazing with glassy-eyed delight at a sparkly ball, or jumping, with gleeful obsessiveness, on the trampoline in her backyard. When she's excited or agitated, her hands curl up into little claws.

Is this a believable and accurate portrayal of what a high-functioning autistic person would be like? Maybe. Did the role demand tons of preparation and concentration on Weaver's part? There's no doubt. ("Snow Cake" was written by Angela Pell, who drew on her own experience with her 7-year-old son's autism.)

Wristcutters: A Love Story

2007-04-12T16:17:00.000-06:00

Suicide is very much a laughing matter in "Wristcutters: A Love Story," a genially warped road-trip comedy that imagines a special purgatory for those who have willfully departed the land of the living. Though its absurdist inventions occasionally border on twee, this affectionate slow-blooming romance mines an understated vein of comic melancholy that the actors' wistful performances perfectly capture. Prime specialty fare is sure to find passionate admirers in limited release and marks an auspicious feature debut for helmer Goran Dukic.

Cobra Verde

2007-03-24T15:05:00.000-06:00

Kinski's character, however, is far from the film's only serving of astonishing insanity: Herzog depicts the 19th century as an insensibly violent era, with both Africans and Europeans given equal time for maniac brutality. After da Silva wanders onto a town square where Brazilian colonials in comfy carriages entertain themselves by watching slaves get whipped in punishment, he's hired by a wealthy sugar plantation owner as an overseer. There, the sweet stuff is wrung from human misery: Slaves work alongside rumbling industrial machinery like cogs (almost literally: One man gets his arm caught in a cane-thrashing mill, and the factory owner calmly calls for someone to cut him loose). Sent to Africa after impregnating all three of the plantation owner's daughters, da Silva successfully parleys with the mad King of Dahomey to procure a boatload of human livestock in return for rifles. But later, da Silva leads a revolt against the king with the help of a massive army of topless warrior-women—like a spectacularly Freudian nightmare conjured after wanking to one too many National Geographic magazines.

Das Experiment (2002)

2007-03-07T12:18:00.000-06:00

A keen, gripping psychodrama with unsettling real-life underpinnings, Das Experiment marries German post-fascist soul-searching to the fast-paced voyeuristic pop thrills of reality TV. Though uncredited as such, the film cribs its plot from the Stanford Prison Experiment, a 1971 study in which male college students role-played guards and inmates. Stanford's projected two-week incarceration was terminated after six days due to its unexpectedly severe mental effects on both subjects and researchers.

Dirty, Filthy Love (2004)

2007-03-07T12:05:00.000-06:00

Dirty Filthy Love follows the once ambitious Mark (Michael Sheen) as he faces losing his wife, his job, and ultimately his mental health. We are introduced to Mark as he's lying in bed unable to move, from his room, also his sanctuary from the uncontrollable world around him. He stares at the hand ticking on the alarm clock, and fixates on his foot hitting the floor as he gets off the bed. He is trapped and haunted by his fear, a slave to his compulsions. . . . . Dirty Filthy Love focuses on Mark's increasing difficulties. His inertia is a byproduct of his growing alienation from the normalcy of his former existence. Diagnosed with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, coupled with increasing Tourette's Syndrome symptoms, Mark tries desperately to repress his condition, all the while becoming more of a social outcast.

Copycat (1995)

2007-03-07T11:55:00.000-06:00

Sigourney Weaver plays Dr. Helen Hudson, a criminal psychologist and world-famous expert on serial killers who nonetheless is filled with dread of the murderer. She's terrified partly because she knows how demented the minds of her subjects are. Meanwhile, M.J. Monahan (Hunter), a terse, wiry homicide detective, has her own way of trying to catch the killer. ``Copycat'' goes from A to B to C with a pounding pulse and deepening shadows of foreboding. An opening sequence in which a killer -- but not the killer -- corners Dr. Hudson in a college campus women's room after a lecture sets the creepy, take-no-hostages tone. Hudson is so terrified by the incident that she becomes agoraphobic, terrified of leaving her home. Her high windows afford a view of an upscale, beautiful world getting on with its business without her.

8MM Is a Fate Worse Than Death

2007-03-05T10:20:00.000-06:00

8MM begins very well as a nouveau noir. Cage, as private detective Tom Welles, is hired by a dowager who has discovered a one-of-a-kind 8mm snuff film among her late husband's belongings. She wants to know if the girl who is apparently killed in course of the privately made S&M porno reel is still alive. . . . The idea of snuff films is presented as so obnoxious that it disgusts even the slimiest porn peddlers. This doesn't stop Schumacher from teasing us with one, nor does it stop there. 8MM voyeuristically wallows in the sadistic violence it professes to deplore.

The Number 23

2007-03-05T10:14:00.000-06:00

Walter Sparrow (Jim Carrey) is leading a seemingly normal life with a seemingly normal wife, Agatha (Virginia Madsen), and a seemingly normal son, Robin (Logan Lerman). (It's necessary to throw in a "seemingly" here and there because of the nature of the production.) Everything changes the day his wife purchases a copy of a book entitled The Number 23 at a used bookstore. The book is about the obsession of the main character, a detective named Fingerling, with the number 23 in its various permutations. Walter becomes obsessed with the book. He senses an eerie connection between himself and Fingerling and, like the protagonist, he believes there's something important about how often 23 appears in his life. A psychologist friend (Danny Huston) suggests that he sees 23 everywhere because he's looking for 23 everywhere, but Walter ignores this sensible advice and begins to imagine conspiracies and murders.

The Comfort of Strangers (1990)

2007-02-24T23:09:00.000-06:00

It's a truly creepy, odd, ultimately mean-spirited film which makes brilliant use of Walken as the vehicle for Pinter's omnipresent sense of dripping menace lurking beneath a patina of polite words. Walken, who is menacing while being amiable and polite, even while being gracious, was born to act with Pinter's dialogue. There could be no better setting for these sinister goings-on than Venetian alleys and interiors. This is probably the most fully realized example of Harold Pinter's genius on film.

A Fine State This Is (2003)

2007-02-20T16:54:00.000-06:00

Jessica Chandler’s astonishing documentary looks at lesbian artist Fargo Deborah Whitman, who has multiple personality disorder (which is now referred to by the more clinical and, frankly, more opaque term disassociative identity disorder or DID). The film screens as part of an especially strong slate at Rendezvous With Madness, a 10-day festival focussing on mental illness, addiction and other odd workings of the mind. By the end of A Fine State This Is, one wonders whether there is anything disordered about Whitman. Her living as a legion of selves, whom she calls “alters” — among them are a gay man, several children and a couple of apes — seems to make a hell of a lot more sense than the ordered repression that we call normal.

People Say I'm Crazy

2007-02-20T16:39:00.000-06:00

A rare look at mental illness from the point of view of the afflicted, ''People Say I'm Crazy'' is a diarylike documentary that records several years in the life of John Cadigan, a young man who, he says, experienced his first psychotic break with reality as a 21-year-old art student in Pittsburgh. The film . . . is made up of video clips, some shot by Mr. Cadigan and others by his older sister, Katie, who emerges as his strongest pillar of support during his prolonged illness. As Mr. Cadigan, in a voice-over narration, describes the ups and downs of his disease, he illustrates his points with scenes from his own life of quiet desperation. He moves from depression and paranoia to full-blown psychotic episodes, eventually somewhat softened by new medications that come on the market.

The Treatment

2007-02-18T09:59:00.000-06:00

I will admit to some trepidation upon entering the theater given Ian Holm’s last outing as a psychiatrist in “Garden State” which provided for some overlong, draining moments, as well as the general predominance of the psychiatric couch used as entertainment fodder these days, sometimes successfully, sometimes not. But lo and behold, not only do we have an accurate, engaging psychoanalytic session, but Holm steps up with a completely unique character, ready to kick serious mental ass. Dr. Morales is not a passive analyst, nor a positive affirmation helper- this is a dyed in the wool, old country Freudian scholar. He goes to work on Jake with a vengeance, sparing no rod nor spoiling his patient with fluffy anecdotes and coddling. What keeps him sympathetic is his obvious and palpable humanism, expressing great love for the human condition and indeed, a restrained but genuine care and concern for his patient, just when one might write him off as an intellectual terror. The moral of my doubt: Never underestimate Ian Holm’s capacity for brilliance. He’ll only pull another great performance out of his hat and make you look like a moron for doubting him. This is a phenomenal, sharp bit of acting from a master.

Mozart and the Whale

2007-02-12T18:03:00.000-06:00

Strong performances anchor this low-key romantic drama about two people with Asperger syndrome. Although the narrative loses oomph as it enters increasingly generic territory, screenwriter Ron Bass doesn't sentimentalize his characters as he did in "Rain Man." Radha Mitchell delivers a typically fine performance as the extrovert in the central couple, and Josh Hartnett offers what is by far his best work to date. A selection of the Santa Barbara film festival, "Mozart & the Whale" is based on the story of Jerry and Mary Newport, who were profiled in a 1995 Los Angeles Times piece and on "60 Minutes" and who will chronicle their relationship in an upcoming book.

The Prize Winner of Defiance, Ohio

2007-02-03T19:16:00.000-06:00

rogerebert.com: The Prize Winner of Defiance, Ohio (xhtml): "Evelyn, played by Julianne Moore, is like the small-town cousin of Cathy, the Connecticut housewife she played in 'Far from Heaven' (2003). Cathy was trapped in a sterile marriage, and a world where men made all the decisions and women were locked in supporting roles. Judging by the body count around her dinner table in Ohio, Evelyn Ryan's marriage is not sterile, but it is a trap. Her husband Kelly (Woody Harrelson) puts back a six-pack and a pint of whiskey every night, drinking up his paycheck. He's a nice guy when he's sober, but undergoes such terrifying personality changes that the family is afraid to enter the kitchen when he's listening to a baseball game. He never actually beats Evelyn, although she is sometimes injured as a side effect of his rages, and suffers emotional anguish when he pounds on the brand new freezer with a frying pan. When the cops are called, they stand around with him in the kitchen, discussing those Red Sox."

49 Up

2007-01-22T12:14:00.000-06:00

Clinical Psychiatry News: "“The Up Series” is a British television project that has tracked 14 individuals across the lifespan since 1963, when they were 7 years old. Michael Apted helped select subjects and did research for the first film, “Seven Up!” (1964). There was no plan for future films. That was Apted's brainchild, following upon the popularity of the first film, a grainy, superficial, 39-minute production. Since then, he has directed a new film every 7 years, based on updated gazes into participants' lives, blending new footage with clips from the earlier films (“7 Plus Seven,” “21 Up,” “28 Up,” “35 Up” and “42 Up”). “49 Up” is the latest report in this unique filmic record. We revisit all but 2 of the 14 participants as they are about to turn 50. (Charles and Peter have long since dropped out, after “21 Up” and “28 Up,” respectively.)"

Little Children

2007-01-21T12:09:00.000-06:00

If it wasn't for the sex offender, they'd have to face themselves: "People will notice Winslet's great performance in 'Little Children.' But I hope people will also notice Jackie Earle Haley's as an ex-con, a sex offender who has done time for exposing himself to children. Haley is so good that people may forget that he's acting, which means that it's also a daring performance. Haley plays fully into the appalling repugnance of the character, someone whose internal life is unknowable but who lives somewhere on the line between the human and animal-predator world. His only channel to moral feeling and self-perception is his mother (Phyllis Somerville, also brilliant), with whom he lives. Actors have been playing criminals since the birth of cinema, but there's something about what Haley does -- the way he portrays the ugliness and the loneliness of the criminal mind -- that feels new.
Field and Perrotta are very shrewd. They satirize neither the notion of a sex offender nor the threat that people feel from his presence. The threat is real. The object of satire then becomes the odd release and solidarity that his presence brings to the community. "

Wit

2007-01-19T03:13:00.000-06:00

BBC - Films - review - Wit: "Edson's primary conceit is to have Thompson's rigid spinster academic - a woman who has dedicated her life to the mysteries of John Donne's sonnets - placed at the mercy of an efficient but unfeeling medical establishment. Advised by her physician (Christopher Lloyd) to endure crippling bouts of chemotherapy, Vivian finds her formidable intellect counts for nothing in an environment that regards her merely as a research tool."

Leolo

2006-12-12T10:58:00.000-06:00

Roger Ebert on Leolo: "'Leolo' is an enchanting, disgusting, romantic, depressing, hilarious, tragic movie, and it is quite original - one of the year's best. I have never seen one like it before. It cannot be assigned a category, or described in terms of other films. I felt alive when I was watching it. If you are one of those lonely film lovers who used to attend foreign films, who used to seek out the offbeat and the challenging, and who has given up on movies because they all seem the same, crawl out of your bunker and go to see this one. It will remind you that movies can be wonderful."

Inland Empire

2006-12-08T07:42:00.000-06:00

Inland Empire - Movies - Review - New York Times: "There are, in the movies, few places creepier to spend time than in David Lynch’s head. It is a head where the wild things grow, twisting and spreading like vines, like fingers, and taking us in their captive embrace. Over the last three decades these wild things have laid siege to us even as they have mutated: the deformed baby of “Eraserhead” evolving into the anguished distortions of “The Elephant Man,” the Reagan-era surrealism of “Blue Velvet,” the serial home invasion in “Twin Peaks” and the meta-cinematic masterpiece “Mulholland Drive,” a dispatch from that smog-choked boulevard of broken dreams called Hollywood. "

Canvas (2006)

2006-11-14T13:22:00.000-06:00

Canvas (2006): "A remarkable movie that works the local communities beautiful surroundings into a film that accepts the challenge to deal with mental illness in today's family lifestyle. The acting looms large with intense moments of diversity and sadness wrapped with an uncertain ending. The script was outstanding, as the cast was able to perform with more non verbal communication that allowed for creative thinking by the audience on how someone could deal with such hardship. "

In Good Conscience

2006-10-22T10:58:00.000-06:00

Variety.com - Reviews - In Good Conscience: Sister Jeannine Gramick's Jour: "Barbara Rick, collaborating with Albert Maysles behind the camera, has crafted an absorbing docu, 'In Good Conscience,' about a nun torn between her vows of obedience and her public advocacy for the acceptance of gays in the Catholic church. The unassuming Sister Jeannine Gramick may be the most engaging spokesperson for the Catholic faith in recent memory, but, in the best tradition of religious crusaders, she has been threatened with expulsion and commanded to keep silent. Pic's dual focus and the enormous charm of its subject should fuel demand in gay and non-traditional religious venues."

Far From Heaven

2006-08-04T13:12:00.000-06:00

Far From Heaven: "Cathy Whitaker (Julianne Moore) has a seemingly perfect life. Her husband, Frank (Dennis), is a recognized TV salesman. As per the American dream, she has two children and a comfortable home. She is content with the way things are, until Frank inadvertently provides a shock to her system. One night, when he is supposedly working late, Cathy hand-delivers him dinner, only to find him in a torrid embrace with another man. Afterwards, Frank confesses that he has always had homosexual feelings and promises to seek out a doctor to help him 'beat this thing.' While Frank is struggling with his sexuality, Cathy finds herself drawn to the quiet, kind gardener, Raymond (Dennis Haysbert). Raymond is black, and, on an occasion when he and Cathy are seen in public, a firestorm of nasty rumors begins. Raymond's idealistic belief that color should not be a social barrier are soon put to the test, and Cathy finds that her platonic relationship with Raymond is as much of a danger to her family as is Frank's homosexuality. "

Quinceañera

2006-08-04T12:52:00.000-06:00

Quinceañera: "“Quinceañera,” a portrait of a Mexican-American family in Los Angeles, is as smart and warmhearted an exploration of an upwardly mobile immigrant culture as American independent cinema has produced. Set in Echo Park, a working-class Latino neighborhood in the early throes of gentrification, it has a wonderfully organic feel for the fluid interaction of cultures and generations in the Southern California melting pot. "

The Devil And Daniel Johnston

2006-05-24T17:39:00.000-06:00

The Devil And Daniel Johnston by Jessica Winter: "Lunatic talent is the siren call to many an overmatched filmmaker, as a random sampling of biopics can attest�scrambled brain chemistry is too easily romanticized and lends itself to drab miserablism, yet it can't pass muster as a tragic flaw. The Devil and Daniel Johnston steers a confident course through this minefield: The titular artist and singer-songwriter's raw genius and cult recognition don't conquer his demons so much as they collaborate, negotiate, and brawl with them. Shot mostly on richly hued Super 16 and stitching together a chaotic life with nary a seam showing, Jeff Feuerzeig's tremendous documentary runs on the motive force of intelligent fandom and radiates an ineffable grace."

Night Watch

2006-04-27T16:26:00.000-06:00

"Night Watch (Ronda Nocturna) is a very strange film. It follows Victor, a street hustler in Buenos Aires, through a night while he aimlessly wanders the streets and has seemingly random encounters with various denizens of the night. He spends time with fellow hustlers, friends, the homeless, and clients, but nothing leads to anything nor do the various encounters relate to each other. Some encounters are short, such as people asking him what bus to take, and others are quite extended, such as the taxi ride and dinner Victor shares with an old friend, but none of these seem to relate to any central theme. This essentially leaves a movie with no plot and no conclusion. There are some surreal moments thrown in that are never explored further: We wonder whether these sequences are intended to show some kind of descent into paranoia or delusion by Victor, or if they are an attempt by the director to add some artsy aspects, because these plot elements do not develop nor are tied in to anything. What we end up with is a movie where we follow a character through what seems to be a random night in his life. Nothing revelational happens to him, nor does he appear to make any life changes as a result of his experiences that night. As daybreak occurs, we are still following Victor as he apparently begins a new day, yet there is no ending nor even anything that even makes us think the movie is coming to an end. The credits start rolling, and we are left scratching our heads wondering the whole point of it all."

Stryker

2006-04-27T16:19:00.000-06:00

"It's a terrifying movie, frankly, getting inside the fear and violence of the character's lives as it does. There are drug skirmishes, full-on gang fights, endless desperation and despair. By the time a cop offers Stryker a 'starlight tour' -- the euphemism for a beating and a drive so far from town that you could freeze to death before you stumble back -- the anxiety levels are overwhelming."