Crisp Criticism - "Sin City: A Dame to Kill for", "Night Moves", "The Congress", "The Identical"

by

Julien Faddoul

Sin City: A Dame to Kill for

Some of Sin City's most hard-boiled citizens cross paths with a few of its more reviled inhabitants.

A movie who’s sole intention is to show the audience some hats and coats and cigarettes and boobs and rain; beyond contempt.

d – Frank Miller, Robert Rodriquez

w – Frank Miller   (Based on the Graphic Novels by Frank Miller)

ph – Robert Rodriquez

pd – Caylah Eddleblute, Steve Joyner

m – Robert Rodriquez, Carl Thiel

ed – Robert Rodriquez

cos – Nina Proctor

p – Robert Rodriquez, Sergei Bespalov, Aaron Kaufman, Stephen L’Heureux, Mark C. Manuel, Alexander Rodnyansky

Cast: Mickey Rourke, Jessica Alba, Josh Brolin, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Rosario Dawson, Bruce Willis, Eva Green, Powers Boothe, Dennis Haysbert, Ray Liotta, Christopher Meloni, Jeremy Piven, Christopher Lloyd, Jaime King, Juno Temple, Stacy Keach, Marton Csokas

Night Moves *

Three radical environmentalists look to execute the explosion of a hydroelectric dam.

Dostoyevsky-esque thriller with more plot that one expects from this director, which, particularly near the end, becomes ludicrous.

d – Kelly Reichardt

w – Kelly Reichardt, Jon Raymond

ph – Christopher Blauvelt

pd – Elliott Hostetter

m – Jeff Grace

ed – Kelly Reichardt

cos – Victoria Farrell

p – Neil Kopp, Chris Maybach, Anish Savjani, Rodrigo Teixeira

Cast: Jesse Eisenberg, Dakota Fanning, Peter Sarsgaard, Alia Shawkat, Logan Miller, Kai Lennox

The Congress *

An aging, out-of-work actress signs a deal with a studio for them to technologically reproduce her likeness so that they can animate all her future performances themselves.

Earnest, far-reaching film – the second half being almost totally animated – with its star playing herself. It gets caught up in its own inventions far too early and ultimately is revealed to be nothing more than subversively adolescent.

wd – Ari Folman   (Based on the Novel by Stanislaw Lem)

ph – Michal Englert

pd – Neil Spisak

m – Brian Tyler

ed – Joel Negron, Glen Scantlebury

cos – Sarah Edwards   

p – Reinhard Brundig, Sebastien Delloye, Piotr Dzieciol, Ari Folman, Eitan Mansuri, Ewa Puszczynska, Robin Wright

Cast: Robin Wright, Harvey Keitel, Jon Hamm, Kodi Smit-McPhee, Danny Huston, Sami Gayle, Paul Giamatti, Michael Stahl-David

The Identical

Twin brothers are unknowingly separated at birth; one of them becomes Elvis Presley by another name, while the other struggles to balance his love for music and pleasing his father.

A movie from Mars: One of the strangest and most heinous concoctions to be offered to the cinema in many years. Words fail to describe the kind of feverishness it induces. Spectacularly, nay almightily, bad.

d – Dustin Marcellino

w – Howard Klausner

ph – Karl Walter Lindenlaub

pd – Keith Brian Burns

m – Christopher Carmichael, Jerry Marcellino, Yochanan Marcellino

ed – Rick Shaine

cos – Karyn Wagner

p – J. Clarke Gallivan, Howard Klausner, Dustin Marcellino, Joe McDougall, Matt Russell, Coke Sams, Clio Tegel

Cast: Blake Rayne, Seth Green, Ashley Judd, Joe Pantoliano, Ray Liotta, Erin Cottrell, Brian Geraghty, Chris Mulkey, Amanda Crew