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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Little Secrets

By EdwardHavens

August 23rd, 2002

I know how you feel. After a summer of genetically enhanced clones, a guy bitten by a radioactive spider, the nuclear destruction of Baltimore, aliens in lingere, aliens hding in crop circles, an extreme sport spy, surfer chicks from Maui, Kung Fu Matt Damon and a variety of other forms of sensory bombardment disguised as entertainment, you want to throw up your hands and scream at the Movie Gods "Would it not be too much to ask for something small, pleasant, inoffensive and enjoyable by the entire family?" If this is where you are right now, the Gods have answered your prayers with this delightful new film from the team of director Blair Treu and writer Jessica Barondes.


Once and Again's Evan Rachel Wood stars Emily, a talented young violinist who must stay at home for the summer to practice for her big symphony audition while all her friends are off at camp. Amongst the other children in the neighborhood, Emily is known as the Secret Keeper, one who, for the small fee of fifty cents, will listen to your worst problems and help you as best she can. When a new family moves into the house next door, Emily befriends Philip (Michael Angarano, from Almost Famous), who is slightly younger but instantly smitten with Emily. Also falling hard is Philip's older brother David (Seventh Heaven's David Gallagher), who has but one brief encounter with Emily in a mall before he is shipped off to tennis camp, neither one aware they are neighbors. Of course, Emily has some secrets of her own, and as the summer unfolds, complications arise that will challenge friendships and cause Emily to rethink her priorities and make some changes in her life.

What saves this movie from being little more than an overblown afterschool special are the three delightful young leads. Freed from the histrionics that usually accompany their heavy handed television shows, Ms. Wood and Mr. Gallagher make for a charming, winsome duo. Their characters are real young teens, who handle their problems not with hamfisted agitation or explosions of anger, but with geniune thoughtfulness. And, of course, it doesn't hurt that both are cute as a couple of buttons. Mr. Angarano is also a revelation, showing his little triumph is Cameron Crowe's previous film was just a preview of things to come.

As with most movies aimed at a family audience today, there are topics touched on and dealt with in this film including friendship, first love and teen drinking. It is a credit to the filmmaking team that these topics are dealt with in a respectful manner, yet never allowing the story to become overbearing. This is simply good filmmaking, and deserving of your attention.

I give Little Secrets gets an A for effort and an A for execution.

My rating: A