Relations between the countries of Iran and the United States may be ill at ease, but Iranian cinematic import A Separation — just off its Golden Globe Best Foreign Language Film win and a Best Screenplay feting by the Los Angeles Film Critics Association, the first such honor from the organization for a foreign film — is deservedly capturing the hearts and minds of plenty of American cineastes. The movie is a multi-layered familial drama about a married couple (Peyman Moadi and Leila Hatami) attempting to resolve elder care issues, their teenage daughter's needs and the potentiality of a divorce when a misunderstanding turned legal problem with their new maid renders these problems secondary. Sophisticated and yet immediately knowable, the rapturously engaging A Separation belies cliched notions of how a foreign film must connect with American audiences in staid, formal tones. I recently had a chance to sit down one-on-one with writer-director Asghar Farhadi, to discuss (with the assistance of a translator) his award-winning movie, as well as life in general and his personal filmmaking future in Iran. The conversation is excerpted over at ShockYa, so click here for the read.

Nominations for the 84th annual Academy Awards are out today, and apart from being thrilled at the lack of recognition for the dreadful Hoodwinked Too!, I'm heartened by the deserved love for Moneyball. A few other quick thoughts — it's nice recognition for A Better Life's Best Actor nominee Demián Bichir, Best Documentary nominee Hell and Back Again, and particularly Best Original Screenplay nominee A Separation. Massively bummed about the lack of kudos for Drive and Martha Marcy May Marlene, though. Interviews with A Separation's writer-director Asghar Farhadi and Pina director Wim Wenders, also a Best Documentary nominee, coming later today. Hosted by Billy Crystal, the Oscars will be broadcast on February 26, live from the Kodak Theatre, on ABC.

Post-South Carolina, Andrew Sullivan tees one up and smashes it out of the park, playing the world's tiniest violin for what is called the Republican establishment — which now consists of Rush Limbaugh, Karl Rove, Roger Ailes and their mainfold products and creations run amok — and a political party that is "angry at the new shape and color of America, befuddled by a suddenly more complicated world, and dedicated primarily to emotion rather than reason." This is what happens when you habitually enable, and indeed encourage, gamesmanship for the sake of gamesmanship, and politics as war.

A paint-by-numbers, underdog-made-good, coming-of-age tale set against the backdrop of junior circuit tennis, 16-Love is a wholesome movie of modest ambitions, shaggy and sunny personality, and middling execution. For tweens looking for something to while away the time between Twilight flicks there may be some small measure of entertainment, but nothing else here particularly merits a glance for older audiences. For the full, original review, from ShockYa, click here.

Viral pandemic drama takes a backseat to fraternal fisticuffs and gunplay in The Viral Factor, an enjoyably sprawling if completely scatterbrained action movie from director Dante Lam, starring Jay Chou (above) and Nicholas Tse. A nervous tendency to flit to and fro between characters prevents the movie from successfully gaining much of an emotional foothold, and its two-hour running time renders vast swathes of its action theatrics redundant. But there's still enough expressive investment in the two leads to mark The Viral Factor as a slightly stronger than average genre piece for foreign film fans. For the full, original review, from Screen International, click here. (China Lion/Emperor Motion Pictures, R, 122 minutes)

Steven Soderbergh's Haywire opens this Friday, January 20, so it's time for another tip of the cap for MMA fighter Gina Carano, who damages the skulls of Michael Fassbender, Ewan McGregor and others in Soderbergh's at once lithe and bruising revenge film. I first saw this movie about a year ago, but for my review of it from its AFI Festival presentation last fall, click here.

Unabashed shlock-fest Piranha 3D raked in a bunch of money in 2010, and even though most of its $83 million worldwide gross came from overseas, Hollywood took notice and immediately tried to wring extra dollars out of the watery, imperiled teenagers subgenre, passing off basically the same general concept to stuntman turned director David Ellis in the hopes that some of his magic touch with teen-friendly material (The Final Destination, Snakes on a Plane) might somehow elevate Shark Night, which was dutifully released in theaters last autumn in the 3-D format, to something passably entertaining. Oops, that didn't work. More after the jump...<< MORE >>

A description or listing of all the recombinant parts of drama Angels Crest — the plot here feels like a Law & Order episode, more or less, and the movie itself seems like a boozy, downmarket hybrid of The Shipping News and Gone Baby Gone, with a pinch of Northern Exposure — runs the risk of making it sound more interesting than it actually is. An adaptation of a missing-child novel by Leslie Schwartz, director Gaby Dellal's wintry indie is a not very subtle and generally unpersuasive stab at tapestral grief-as-elegy. If cinematic skill lies partially in making an audience feel things they've felt before, but in new and different ways, Angels Crest, starring Thomas Dekker, Lynn Collins and Jeremy Piven, is a highlighted, underlined, out-of-date textbook, dogmatic about its presentation, no matter how overly familiar it is. For the full, original review, from ShockYa, click here.

Updates and postings here have been and will continue to be a bit sporadic, at least until the Los Angeles Film Critics Association awards dinner on Friday is in the rearview mirror, and I have collapsed and caught up on sleep. Them's the breaks, unless someone has some cloning technology or one of those remote controls from Click that they'd like to share, although I'd really prefer to leave Christopher Walken out of this if at all possible.

Possessing crack comedic timing, beauty and yet still a sympathetic visage and demeanor, Lindsay Sloane exudes girl-next-door goodness, a quality which has kept her steadily employed in a variety of mostly sunny roles in both movies and television. It's exactly these traits which writer-directors Peter Hyuck and Alex Gregory wished to deploy in subversive manner by casting Sloane in their bawdy comedy A Good Old Fashioned Orgy, just out on DVD last week. I had a chance to sit down and chat with Sloane about the uniquely titled ensemble movie, as well as her off-screen thoughts on its subject matter and what exactly the "orgy cut-off number" is that makes her uncomfortable. She also drops a Bad Boys reference, which is pretty damn cool in my book. For the full read, over at ShockYa, click here.

Actor Michael Biehn has had a long and varied career, but to hear him tell it, his experience shooting his new film The Divide and other events surrounding its production may have marked a change in his professional attitude and outlook. In addition to starring as ex-firefighter turned survivalist Mickey in the post-apocalyptic thriller, which finds a group of New York City neighbors trapped together in the basement of their apartment building in the aftermath of a possible nuclear strike, Biehn has also turned his attention to life behind the camera. With Jennifer Blanc-Biehn, his wife and producer/costar, Biehn's recently completed directorial debut, The Victim, just sold to Anchor Bay Films, and will now see a release later this year. On Friday, I had a chance to participate in a press day for The Divide, talking with Biehn about his instincts for "polishing a turd," his reasons for finally jumping behind the camera, and the incredible on-set tension on The Divide. Oh, and ousted Libyan strongman Muammar Gaddafi also came up. The interview is excerpted over at ShockYa, minus Biehn's thoughts on the current state of hip hop, so click here for the full read.

An unwieldy, frequently baffling piece of claptrap that careens wildly to and fro in its efforts to serve many different narrative masters, gospel-tinged Joyful Noise aims for many different marks, and misses on almost all of them. By turns a musical competition drama, a blue-collar homily, a forbidden coming-of-age romance and a tale of familial reconciliation, the movie tries to use noisy, open-hearted effort to mask its narrative deficiencies, but it comes across as phony — a duet of prefabricated sentimentality and self-satisfied impudence.

The performances are things of volume and homespun sass; in short, these aren't characters, they're vessels for wan moralizing and sometimes snappy, mostly tired rejoinders. Ladled across all of the hokum is a bunch of convoluted, cornpone metaphors. Special note should go to hairstylist Cheryl Riddle, though, who creates a mesmerizing special effect and the movie's most lasting reminiscence in the form of Dolly Parton's towering, teased-upwards hairdo. For the full, original review, from Screen International, click here. (Warner Bros., PG-13, 118 minutes)

For adventurous cineastes seeking "a dreamlike visual statement" (in Steve Dollar's words), Sophie Fiennes' Over Your Cities Grass Will Grow opens in two local Laemmle theaters this Friday, January 6 — in Pasadena at the Playhouse 7, and in Santa Monica at the Monica 4-Plex. Again, for my previous review, from last fall, click here.

The absurd title of writer-directors Alex Gregory and Peter Huyck's movie — with its blend of the lewd and sweet — could be an indicator of watered-down comedic cop-out, but this romp about a group of longtime pals who decide to get horizontal with one another is the real deal, delivering amply on every level in which it chooses to engage. Powered by palpable chemistry amongst its many co-leads, an affable sense of purpose, and plenty of smart timing and whip-smart humor, this sex farce amusingly showcases both the titillation and wild discomfort of its perhaps farfetched concept. More after the jump...<< MORE >>

For my latest DVD/Blu-ray column, over at ShockYa, I take a gander at the Fright Night remake, a couple documentaries, Stephen Dorff and Maria Bello's Carjacker, Nick Di Paolo's new stand-up comedy special, and a movie in which Bruce Willis gets to hold forth with a monologue about how much he loves pecans. Oh, and the new Blu-ray release of 1988's cult flick Maniac Cop, starring Bruce Campbell. Again, it's all over at ShockYa, so click here for the full read.

If one were to ruminate on the equivalent of a Mother Teresa-type figure for the advocacy of natural animal research and wildlife conservation, it would likely be Dr. Jane Goodall, a world-famous icon known for her groundbreaking scientific field work accrued while living amongst chimpanzees in Africa. Directed by Lorenz Knauer, the documentary Jane's Journey offers up a biographical snapshot of both the personal and professional Goodall. More after the jump...<< MORE >>

A thin sheen of technical proficiency isn't enough to boost the emotional connectivity or entertainment value of the exceedingly programmatic genre offering The Darkest Hour, an alien invasion tale with a flat, humdrum script. Derivative and relatively unconcerned with that fact, the film doesn't take advantage enough of its Moscow locale to truly qualify as an exotic sci-fi curio.

Former art director Chris Gorak made his directorial debut in 2007 with Right at Your Door, but his follow-up, while bigger in scope, trades away its chance at cultural authenticity by having native characters speak mostly in accented English, and also understand various American idioms. Whereas the cultural chasm between the four main characters, none of whom speak Russian, and everyone they come across could have been mined for much tension and drama, The Darkest Hour is instead content to use them as bit player enablers in its gung-ho story of fighting back and survival, which makes the movie seem small, not particularly thoughtful and entirely inconsequential. For the full, original review, from Screen International, click here. (Summit, PG-13, 89 minutes)

A sequel to Uwe Boll's 2008 The Lord of the Rings rip-off/videogame adaptation In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale, this only loosely related sequel finds Dolph Lundgren tripping back in time, but unable to stably reach a point prior to his committing to do this movie. More after the jump...<< MORE >>

For my latest DVD/Blu-ray column, over at ShockYa, I celebrate Buster Keaton's work in Seven Chances and Andy Serkis' work in Rise of the Planet of the Apes, examine how the Straw Dogs remake stacks up against both the original and a couple other slices of screen vengeance, get animated with Futurama and CatDog, and ponder T-Pain and the Lonely Island's reaction to Killer Yacht Party. Again, it's all over at ShockYa, so click here for the full read.

There's a nice piece from Michael Tomasky over at the Daily Beast about the Republican House of Representatives' intransigence regarding the payroll tax holiday extension, its contact with the oxygen of reality, and potential net positive impact for President Obama. More after the jump...<< MORE >>

German-born director Uwe Boll is a throwback of sorts to the pioneers of traveling, self-distributed filmmaking — part storyteller, (perhaps much larger) part huckster. Whatever one thinks of him, he is certainly prolific, cranking out around three movies a year over the last half-decade. I recently had a chance to speak with the inimitable Boll about his new-to-DVD film In the Name of the King 2, U.S. presidential politics, his passion project Bailout, which 2011 box office hit he can't believe made so much money, and how his wife doesn't like his movies. The conversation is excerpted over at ShockYa, so click here for the full fun read.

The differences between French cinema and Hollywood studio offerings are various and sundry, but perhaps best illustrated by something like Rapt, a sprawling and inventive kidnap drama which doesn't so much deliver an adrenaline shot of nervy thrills as steadily ooze disquieting tension over the course of its two-hour running time. More after the jump...<< MORE >>

The International Press Academy handed out its 16th annual Satellite Awards Sunday night, in a ceremony at the Beverly Hills Hotel, and while its slate of TV and film nominees tips toward the too expansive, any showering of love for Nicolas Winding Refn's Drive is certainly not a bad thing.

Stephen Daldry has previously made three feature films and been Oscar-nominated as Best Director for each of them, so Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close demands to be taken seriously, and certainly will be by many awards pundits and critics. An adaptation of Jonathan Safran Foer's 2005 novel, the movie purports to filter anguish and the experience of loss through the prism of a quirky young boy. In reality, it's a preening, somber, pretentious and contrived film, a tapestral effort of skilled tradecraft brought to bear upon a self-serious framework of overt manipulations.

Screenwriter Eric Roth jettisons the ethnic specificity and pares down the source material to focus almost exclusively on young Oskar Schell (Thomas Horn, above right) and his unusual quest to emotionally reconnect with his father (Tom Hanks), who perished in the World Trade Center terrorist attacks of September 11, by finding the lock that a key from his closet fits. But the result takes on the qualities of an overly mannered exercise in stimulative poignance. Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close exists less to tell a story than to make an audience feel, and boy does it know it. For the full, original review, from Screen International, click here. (Warner Bros., PG-13, 128 minutes)

Years ago, when the NC-17 rating was first created, it was serious-minded, almost grim explorations of adult sexuality like Shame that its champions no doubt had in mind. Of course, along came the campy Showgirls, which didn't help matters. Mostly, though, the NC-17 rating was a non-starter for Hollywood studios not only because they tend to instinctively shy away from art and controversy like a cat avoids rain, but also because many newspapers — bowing to the tom-toms of local morality police — refused to carry advertising for NC-17 films, which made their attempted distribution more of a hassle than they were worth, frankly. More after the jump...<< MORE >>

On the small screen, AMC's Breaking Bad has shined a light on the production of methamphetamine, and wrung much drama from the heightened stakes of a seemingly regular family man's descent into moral and criminal contravention. Writer-director David Pomes' effectively grimy Cook County takes a look at the ravaging effects of the same drug from a user's point-of-view, detailing the familial chaos surrounding three generations of addicts living in rural East Texas. A gritty, pungent drama with some nicely attuned performances, the film is well worth seeking out for fans of off-the-beaten-path independent fare. More after the jump...<< MORE >>

A refined and not entirely disagreeable slice of square-jawed drama with the smooth, uncomplicated contours of film made to please the broadest possible audience, Steven Spielberg's War Horse clings steadfastly to very old-fashioned — and sometimes torpid — notions of emotional engagement. With its episodic stabs at poignancy, there's not much to assail with fury here, but neither is there much about which to get passionately excited or interested.

Notwithstanding the well received nature of its source material, and the array of accomplished below-the-line artisanship brought to bear in its adaptation, War Horse — a self-consciously epic story, set against a sweeping canvas of rural England and Europe during World War I, about a teenager (Jeremy Irvine) and his connection to and unlikely reunion with the family's horse — is a movie with very rigidly prescribed and not particularly ambitious melodramatic inclinations. Screenwriters Richard Curtis and Lee Hall, working from Michael Morpurgo's novel, get plenty right in the period detail, but never find a way to make a dramatic throughline really stick, and when the film actually goes off to war its grip loosens considerably. For the full, original review, from Screen International, click here. (DreamWorks, PG-13, 146 minutes)

Elizabeth Mitchell is the sort of actress whose statuesque beauty (she's 5'9") has allowed her to be cast both by and against type. She made out with Angelina Jolie in the HBO movie Gia, made a much more unsettling impression in Wayne Kramer's creepy Running Scared, and then enjoyed a healthy run as Dr. Juliet Burke on the small screen smash hit Lost. She's now moved on to V, and is also part of the ensemble cast of writer-director Matthew Leutwyler's Answers To Nothing, in which she plays a woman trying to get pregnant with a husband (Dane Cook) that she doesn't know is cheating on her. I recently had a chance to chat with Mitchell, one-on-one and in person, about the film (which is in theaters and also currently available on VOD), her necessarily quick connection with costar Julie Benz, life in small town Washington and more. The conversation is excerpted over at ShockYa, so click here for the read.

For my latest DVD/Blu-ray column, over at ShockYa, I take a gander at Mr. Popper's Penguins, Kino Lorber's two-disc release of the documentary Great Directors, and more. It's inclusive of a nice photo of David Lynch and an even better one of Amber Heard. Again, it's over at ShockYa, so click here for the full read.

On November 27, DreamWorks Pictures presented an advance screening of Steven Spielberg's War Horse in New York City. The after-event featured a 55-minute Q&A session with the filmmaker, which was streamed live on MSN to people in over 120 countries. Now it's on YouTube, for those who missed it; Spielberg talks about the emotional language of the movie, the inspiration of John Ford, and exactly how many "Joey"s there were.

A political drama as well as a story of remarkable spousal support, devotion and understanding, director Luc Besson's The Lady stars Michelle Yeoh as Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi, the democratically elected leader of Burma who spent years imprisoned by her native country's military junta. While Yeoh is better known for the sort of physicality she's put on display in more straightforward genre films, The Lady masterfully showcases her quiet and controlled side, to often heartrending effect. I recently had a chance to speak to Yeoh one-on-one in person, about her exacting research for the movie, the challenges of embodying a well known public figure, and more. The conversation is excerpted over at ShockYa, so click here for the full read, in which Yeoh passingly reveals that she used to read... Mad Magazine?

Julie Benz has been dead for a couple years now — well, to a lot of people who follow Dexter religiously. Thankfully, in real life, the 39-year-old actress has kept busy even after her shocking fourth-season offing from the hit Showtime series, popping up in roles on Desperate Housewives and No Ordinary Family, amongst other projects. In co-writer-director Matthew Leutwyler's new film, Answers to Nothing, she plays Frankie, a hard-charging Los Angeles police investigator working to solve a case involving a missing little girl. I recently had a chance to sit down and talk to Benz one-on-one, about Answers to Nothing and the extremely short preparation time she had for the project, as well as what sort of reactions she gets from Dexter fans. The conversation is excerpted over at ShockYa, so click here for the read.

Its tagline ("Finally, a funny church sex scandal") hints at something perhaps irredeemably coarse, but For Christ's Sake is a comedy very much in the vein of Kevin Smith's Zack and Miri Make a Porno and the more recent A Good Old-Fashioned Orgy, which is to say that it goes to considerable lengths to counterbalance the outrageousness of its premise with a healthy dollop of heart. More after the jump...<< MORE >>

Answers to Nothing is an unfortunately all-too-apt title for director Matthew Leutwyler's sprawling thematic think piece, which focuses on the hard knocks and self-deception of a disparate group of Los Angelenos. The filmmakers seem to be reaching rather nakedly for early Paul Thomas Anderson territory here, but the copped moves come off less as artful homage and more as the nervous half-formed duplications of a mentee who's left the nest too soon. More after the jump...<< MORE >>

He can't spill the beans on the in-the-works Entourage movie, but fans will still be seeing plenty of Jeremy Piven in the time it takes for his character, Ari Gold, to wind his way to the big screen. I had a chance to sit down and talk to the actor one-on-one recently, about his new film, Mark Pellington's I Melt With You, as well as his work methods, one of the things he thinks causes cancer, and his unlikely screen pairing with Miley Cyrus...<< MORE >>

A tender, well sketched drama of familial reconnection and rebirth in the wake of tragedy, Julie Bertucelli's The Tree, set in the rural environs of Australia, for the most part successfully balances the literal and metaphorical in its telling of coping with loss, and trying to move on after the death of a loved one. Engaging acting and some gorgeous and involving cinematography make this movie a treat for arthouse audiences. More after the jump...<< MORE >>

Cameron Crowe tries on something of a forcedly whimsical tone in We Bought a Zoo, a well-meaning and sentimental but lumbering family drama that never quite connects. Existing in a kind of wan emotional middle-ground, only occasionally punctuated and illuminated by Matt Damon's winning lead turn, the film is a search for familial rejuvenation and self-renewal in only the vaguest terms possible.

Based on a memoir by journalist Benjamin Mee, We Bought a Zoo tracks closely in its massaged feeling to Marley & Me, which distributor 20th Century Fox had great success with in the same holiday frame in 2008, pushing to $240 million worldwide gross. But while character-driven, tonally commingled qualities have always been a hallmark of Crowe's big screen efforts, this film exudes the feeling of an artist reaching more than halfway to make contact with an audience that market-parsers have told him should be right in his wheelhouse. For the full, original review, from Screen International, click here. (20th Century Fox, PG, 124 minutes)

A sprawling tale of power, sleaze and ambition in the vein of City of God, The Departed, Infernal Affairs and The Wire, writer-director Jose Padilha's Elite Squad: The Enemy Within is a howling, labyrinthine lament against the brawn and fraudulent self-protection of entrenched institutions that could and perhaps should well find a welcome audience amongst #OccupyWallStreet cineastes. More after the jump...<< MORE >>

Crazy Wisdom focuses on a subject perhaps worthy of a documentary, but hopelessly obscured by fawning and myopia. More after the jump...<< MORE >>

Its perfectly anonymous, sex-and-violence-tinged title is enough to mistake it for a Shannon Tweed thriller circa the early to mid-1990s, but writer-director Sean Weathers' Lust for Vengeance is a whole different type of terrible, thank you very much. More after the jump...<< MORE >>

With his recent British GQ thrashing of Khloe Kardashian and her sisters, Daniel Craig has earned a man-hug and even more respect from me. Props, sir.

Humans are inherently social creatures, and the manner in which we each form a perception of our place in the world around us — and how our ego takes shape and form from our id — certainly relates as much to our interactions as any ingrained or telegraphed sense of social acceptance and duty. Capturing the fickle progress of that individual transformation, however, is a difficult task. A tender and perspicacious look at the toddling steps of adolescent character and personality, writer-director Celine's Sciamma's French import Tomboy assays the gender confusion and willful but not malicious deceit of a 10-year-old girl. Against a backdrop of overly programmed "issue dramas," this movie is notable for its strong foundation in character and wholesale investment in psychology, rather than salacious plotting. For the full, original review, from ShockYa, click here. (Rocket Releasing, unrated, 82 minutes)

The directorial debut of Joshua Leonard, The Lie is an uncommonly assured and engaging portrait of post-millennial and particularly male uncertainty, and how the snowballing effects of impulsive dishonesty will eventually run you down from behind like a jackrabbit. Buoyed by strong performances, this meagerly budgeted but intelligently scaled and smartly told indie film deftly takes the pulse of anxious, arrested times. More after the jump...<< MORE >>

For my latest Blu-ray/DVD column, over at ShockYa, I assay how Samuel L. Jackson's narration weighs down the otherwise engaging nature documentary African Cats, plus take a gander at tween fairy tale Monte Carlo, and give thanks for a documentary hosted by Last Comic Standing winner Iliza Shlesinger, as well as a clutch of horror films, including one featuring a talking killer turkey. Its title? Thankskilling, naturally. For the full, fun read, over at ShockYa, click here.

The folks over at Coatwolf Productions have posted an old-as-new trailer for the superlative Bellflower, which may seem an odd thing to do for a movie making its DVD debut this week. As director Evan Glodell explains, though, it's also kind of an appropriate time to finally loose this version, the narration of which was written before the entire screenplay was even finished, upon the world. Also, for those rich and interested, you can purchase your own custom-made Medusa from the collective creative team for a pretty penny. Huzzah!

As the push for Oscar short film short-list consideration has progressed throughout the fall, one movie stirring up some attention is multi-hyphenate Warren Pereira's Salt and Silicone, a purported dark comedy offering up split perspectives of the same event — a public conversation about breast implants. More after the jump...<< MORE >>

A murder mystery, forensic investigation and political drama rolled into one, Incendiary: The Willingham Case shines a spotlight on the circumstances surrounding Cameron Todd Willingham, a Texas man convicted in the arson deaths of his three young children. Enjoying particular currency given the alleged manipulation of a post-mortem state forensics commission stacked by current Republican presidential candidate Rick Perry, this documentary, flatly told but engaging throughout, will appeal to both newsmagazine junkies and those impassioned by the death penalty debate. For the full, original review, from ShockYa, click here; for more information on the film, click here. (Truly Indie, unrated, 104 minutes)

The drums of war, whatever the specific conflicts, almost always create an opportunity for much in the way of collateral damage. Director Martyn Burke's Under Fire: Journalists in Combat takes the psychological temperature of those who would devote their lives to taking the sort of extraordinary risks that modern day war reportage entails. It's an involving documentary look at a razor's-edge occupation, as well as the coping mechanisms of the human brain under stress. For the full, original review, from ShockYa, click here.

More hormonal catnip arrives in the form of The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn — Part 1, the fourth film in the mega-successful, teen-friendly, modern day vampire love story franchise, and a workmanlike effort that sets the table for series wrap-up next year. An emotionally fraught, dramatically leaden tale, the movie again proves the experiential sweet spot of the franchise — that of surging adolescent feeling trumping rational thought, and in this case lucid plotting.

Scribe Melissa Rosenberg, a veteran of the entire series, does a decent job of distilling some of the main conflicts from the 750-page novel that serves as the source material for the final two films. But dialogue howlers and largely soapy, melodramatic performances abound, and director Bill Condon's staging is inert. Somewhat dispiritingly, but not surprisingly, the movie leans inordinately upon composer Carter Burwell's goosing music cues, but also a litany of modern rock songs. Breaking Dawn isn't the first teen movie to try to move some soundtrack CDs, but the sales success of previous iterations does seem to have informed in circuitous fashion some of the creative choices herein, where songs are used as spackle for incomplete scenes. For the full, original review, from Screen International, click here. (Summit, PG-13, 117 minutes)

I was doing some e-cleaning recently, and stumbled across an interview I did with Robert Hall, the co-writer and director of horror flick (in case the title didn't tip the fact) Chromeskull: Laid to Rest 2. Well... sort of. The main reason I never got around to posting the thing was because Hall was apparently completing some sort of decathlon whilst chatting with me, and so the sound quality was shitty to the point of near-indecipherable, and we also got cut off five times in the span of 15-plus minutes. My over-under on such shenanigans is typically four, but since I'd already transcribed a portion of it, here it is after the jump, courtesy of my compulsion for pointless over-extension...<< MORE >>