FilmJerk Favorites

A group of unique directors and the essential works that you've got to see.

||| Andrei Tarkovsky |||
Andrei Tarkovsky

Tarkovsky's contemplative, metaphysical films, more experienced than watched, are perhaps best described in the director's own words: sculptures in time.

In the post-apocalypse, a writer and scientist hire a "stalker" to guide them into The Zone, a mysterious and restricted wasteland with fabled, alien properties. Their journey, captured by Tarkovsky as a succession of incredible images, has, since, been read as political commentary, religious allegory, and Chernobyl prophesized.

Tarkovsky's visionary biography of the 15th-century icon painter is one of cinema's most majestic and solemn experiences. In some way, it will change you.

An adaptation of Stanis?aw Lem's novel of the same name, Tarkovsky's genre-less sci-fi film, which is set mostly aboard a space station hovering off a strange planet, tangles with issues of identity, death and reality in a way that will leave you agape, in the full meaning.

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Gracie

By BrianOrndorf

June 1st, 2007

Snuggled between a female empowerment movie and a coming-of-age drama is "Gracie." A film of big heart and small charms, "Gracie" dares to enter the summer movie sweepstakes being the lone picture about, gulp, feelings and personal determination. How dare they!

Gracie

Living in the shadow of her athlete brothers, Gracie (Carly Schroeder) struggles to keep her father’s (Dermot Mulroney) attention and feel valued in a male society that doesn’t want her around. When Gracie’s eldest brother, a soccer star and her biggest supporter, dies, the family is left in a dark pit of grief. Looking to celebrate her brother’s life, Gracie decides to try out for the boys’ soccer team at her school, only to find rejection and sexism greeting her at every turn.

“Gracie” is a thinly-veiled autobiographical tale of the Shue family (Elizabeth and Andrew co-star), and how the loss of an older brother shaped their emotional perspective and memories. Events and characters have been changed, but it doesn’t take a detective to sense that “Gracie” comes from someplace very personal and deeply felt.

Soccer is the marketable element here, but “Gracie” is as much about dealing with loss as it is scoring the perfect goal. With a lovely lead performance from Schroeder, the film manages to sneak under the requisite “girls ain’t any good!” fluff to find sympathy with Gracie that goes beyond her struggles of equality. Over the course of the film, we also witness the character deal with her age, and in some uncomfortable sequences, sexuality she isn’t used to yet. “Gracie” isn’t a complicated piece of cinema, but the script wants more for itself outside of male bullies and hazing, and I enjoyed that persistence.

“Gracie” certainly has a comfort zone (much of it deals with classic rock tunes to set the 1978 mood), but the performances are alert enough to help the film get through some formulaic plot turns. Director Davis Guggenheim (“An Inconvenient Truth” and Elizabeth’s husband) respects “Gracie” too much to try and explore new areas of grief and doubt; but his little attempts to buck trends, including staging the “big game” grand finale at a season opener and maintaining the ostracizing of Gracie to the bitter end.

This is a sweet picture; a surefire inspirational tool and a good piece of history for today’s neglectful young women. “Gracie” is also a kind, modest alternative to all the big bangs of the summer.

My rating: B