And it’s pretty damn funny at times. The guy playing Michael Justice is dead-pan to the point where I was actually uncomfortable for the other actors. He has these little moments where his character is just so dumbfounded by someone or something that he can’t even speak. He is by turns arrogant and cruel, slow-witted and naive. What’s funny is not that he’s making the worst movie ever, it’s that the people around him are actually humoring him and taking the project seriously. It’s similar to a Christopher Guest vehicle in that sense. The laughter comes from awkwardly ignorant or self-absorbed characters.

No Burgers for Bigfoot works on many levels, and falls short on others. I don’t think all the actors were talented enough to pull off their archetype in a half-way believable way. Most error on the side of cartoonish absurdity. Yet overall this is a pretty clever film that should find its home on the Indie shelves at video stores around the county, the passionate recommendation of the quirkiest of employees! I give it 3 our of 5 stars.

Overall this was a satisfying glimpse into a world I don’t know much about. The editing was crisp and the characters all seemed to speak freely and naturally, the sign of a talented director. The film runs in at about 45 minutes, but doesn’t feel too short. Most of the footage obtained is from a recent Defcon conference, which is an annual conference where hackers convene for a big tech fair and party. I would recommend this film to just about anyone. It was fun, full of colorful characters and really interesting. 4 out of 5 stars.

Be Kind Rewind is just that, a fairy tale of a film, and it’s certainly a wonderfully ride. Michel Gondry’s world is always imaginative and beautiful, and this is no exception. In the scope of his career, I would put this below Eternal Sunshine but above The Science of Sleep. This film is most definitely worth seeing!

8 out of 10 rating

When the New Hanover Wildcats lose their funding, a band of obsessive local weirdos pull together to save the season and the program. They come up with the idea of an adult flag football game with local celebrities to raise money. What ensues is a wonderfully deadpan, eerily believable, and overall well done film with some priceless moments and a cast that seems like they were born to play these roles. I would highly recommend checking this one out!

9 out of 10 rating

In Attack of the Slime People (directed by Martin King) Buddy Flavanoid is a washed up Hollywood director trying to make his big comeback and cement his place in history as one of the greats. He sets out to make a monster movie about slime people but ends up himself becoming a monster of sorts, murdering (with a baseball bat of all things) anyone who threatens to get in the way of his “uncompromising vision.” There are some bizarre twists and wild gross out moments which I don’t want to ruin by disclosing too much here.

For a low budget movie, this is a fully-realized work of art, with great writing, directing, acting, look and style. It’s at once timeless and modern. All I can say is: find and see this one-of-a-kind comedy that both satirizes a genre and turns it completely on its head! A future cult classic in the making!

9 out of 10
Movie Posters

Control, based off the memoir of Curtis’ wife Debbie (played here by Samantha Morton), is a beautiful, moving, but ultimately flawed elegy to the late singer. Music video legend turned feature film director Anton Corbijn (Nirvana, Depeche Mode, etc.) shot the entire film on location in stark black and white. Visually, this is a gorgeous and mesmerizing film, but where Corbijn fails is his blind desire to make this a study of one man and one man only, a decision that comes at the expense of nearly every other character introduced, including Curtis’ wife herself (a shameful waste of Morton).

An even bigger, and downright unforgivable, flaw is the misguided and joyless approach to Joy Division’s music. We are forced to watch lifeless performance after lifeless performance (and from the footage I’ve seen, Joy Division was anything but lifeless on stage), the only exception being a show where Curtis actually collapses on stage from an epileptic seizure. The band is only seen rehearsing and writing music once (are we supposed to believe music as powerful and influential as theirs just came out of thin air), and we never get a sense of why any of the other musicians are in the band. Corijn seems to strip every character around Curtis of a personality to somehow amplify the “specialness” of Curtis himself. None of this, of course, does the music and art of Joy Division any justice. And this is coming from someone who’s not even that big of a fan.

Sam Riley, who plays Ian Curtis, is the one shining light. He deftly carries the film through some painstakingly slow plot development and meandering story lines, like Curtis’ other love interest, Annik. The biopic, especially the musician biopic, seems to be a task rarely pulled off, and while this is a noble effort, clearly done with much love and respect to Curtis, it unfortunately falls way short of its subject.

6.5 out of 10

Margot’s sister Pauline (Jennifer Jason Leigh) is engaged to Malcolm (Jack Black), an unemployed slacker who fancies himself a struggling writer and artist. As a couple, they are intelligent but underachieving fatalists. And having Margot around isn’t going to help at all. She comes in like a whirling dervish, force-feeding her paranoid theories and repeating every nugget of gossip told to her in confidence. What Baumbach really excels at is dialogue and interaction. Without resorting to pithy back-and-forths or bombastic showdowns, the characters deconstruct and analyze of one another almost nonsensically until they are all pushed to brink of madness.

Baumbach has come a long way since his whiny and self conscious debut Kicking and Screaming (1995), and in his maturity has begun to make challenging and entertaining tragicomedies that will stand the test of time. I would put his last two works up there with any film of the last five years. 9 out of 10.