Neve Campbell

The shift from bright comedy to rather grim drama is gradual enough to carry the audience along, but it's rather startling to end up somewhere so serious after such a cheeky start. Director Anna Mastro and writer Paul Shoulberg set this up as a breezy coming-of-age movie before adding a supernatural twist and quietly moving the goal posts. Fortunately, the strong cast and assured filmmaking carry the audience along. So even if it ultimately begins to feel melodramatic, it's also surprisingly moving and meaningful.

Convinced that he has been called by God to decide who goes to heaven and hell, 18-year-old Walter (Andrew J. West) is a perfectionist who maintains order in his life both at home with his over-concerned mother Karen (Virginia Madsen) and at his job taking tickets in the local multiplex. At work, he has his eye on the smart-sexy Kendall (Levin Rambin), but is too shy to speak to her and is teased mercilessly about this by bullying colleague Vince (Milo Ventimiglia). Then a ghost named Greg (Justin Kirk) starts taunting him as well, and Walter finally agrees to see a shrink (William H. Macy) in the hopes of restoring order to his life.

Of course, the point is that Walter doesn't need order: he needs to face up to the truth about the death of his father (Peter Facinelli in flashbacks). But the more he acknowledges, the more his life seems to unravel around him. This is played beautifully by West, a likeable actor who manages to get even more engaging as Walter falls apart. His interaction with the rest of the cast is pointed and witty, packed with knowing commentary and some sharply funny observations. And all of the actors around him bring layers of emotion and energy to the film.

Continue reading: Walter Review

Anyone interested in how movies get made will love this feisty behind-the-scenes documentary, which uses sharp comedy to explore the messy business side of cinema. Both smart and very funny, it may not tell us much that we don't know (mainly that it's almost impossible to get a film financed unless it's a blockbuster with bankable stars), but it reveals things in ways that make us wonder about the future of the movies.

The film follows actor Alec Baldwin and director James Toback as they head to the Cannes Film Festival to secure funding for their planned Iraq-set riff on Last Tango in Paris. They meet with a variety of experts who tell them that their hoped-for budget is three times too high for a movie starring Baldwin and Neve Campbell. So they talk to Chastain, Bejo and Kruger about taking over the lead role. They also consult with a range of prominent filmmakers including Scorsese, Coppola, Polanski and the Last Tango maestro himself, Bertolucci. But the more time they spend with the people who control the money, the more they wonder if their movie will ever get made.

It's fairly clear from the start that Last Tango in Tikrit is a joke project, but everyone takes it seriously. And as they talk to prospective investors, Baldwin and Toback consider adjusting the film to get more cash by, for example, shooting scenes in Russia or China. It's fascinating to hear these billionaires offer advice on how to get their movie made. And hilariously, no one worries about Baldwin's insistence that the story requires explicit sexual scenes.

Continue reading: Seduced And Abandoned Review

Although, quite honestly, I don't have a particular problem with porn (it just isn't in the regular canon of films to be reviewed, that's all), that simple joke often proves true. One-too-many guilty pleasure flicks have been bashed by me on the account that they do nothing other than serve as a generalized platform for commercializing sex without any other cinematic value. And, although I am willing to give points in such a B-or-C-grade film for casting a woman with certain... assets... that suit the part, I find myself unable to otherwise turn off the "critic's switch" within me to the point that I can be guiltlessly turned on by the images in front of me on the screen.

Continue reading: Wild Things Review

A brilliantly observant, darkly humorous and immaculately acted movie about an average suburban father in the throes of a midlife crisis, "Panic" bears an vague, off-kilter resemblance to "American Beauty" in style and subject.

Its central character is a meek and neurotic man in his 40s (William H. Macy) whose growing fixation with a sexually conflicted nymph (Neve Campbell) half his age is turning his life upside-down. The two films share a similar dysfunctional domesticity as well, and a crisp but sparse visual elegance with just a pinch of excess color.

But Alex (Macy), the sympathetic anti-hero of "Panic," has a much bigger secret than his newfound temptation for a younger woman. Alex is a hit man -- and he's just not sure he's comfortable in that line of work anymore.

Continue reading: Panic Review

The title sequence of Robert Altman's "The Company," a fictional verite peek behind the curtain of Chicago's Joffrey Ballet, consists of a conceptual dance with rainbow lighting and iridescent strips of fabric used to create a constantly shifting web behind and among the lissome and lively dancers.

Their accompanyment is music seemingly harvested from electronic scales -- bloops and bleeps like something out of "Logan's Run." The cinematography provides the audience's perspective, as well as some shots from the back of the stage looking outward, some from just offstage, silhouetting performers in lighting from vertical scaffolds, and some from high within the scaffolding itself.

There are several such sequences throughout the film (they represent passages of time -- one performance for each season at the Ballet), but this first dance literally sets the stage. Altman is metaphorically announcing his intention to spy on every aspect of his subject from the locker rooms and practice barres to covetous company politics and interpersonal cattiness to calluses, injuries and affairs interfering with ambition.

Continue reading: The Company Review