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Reviews
Boy Interrupted (2009)
Evokes mixed feelings...
Dana Heinz Perry's 'Boy Interrupted' is a moving and engrossing documentary about the mental illness that took the life of her 15-year-old son, Evan. Suffering from bi-polar disorder, Evan Scott Perry committed suicide in Oct., 2005 while in the depths of a black depression. Bi-polar disorder runs in the family. Evan's uncle, Scott, who suffered from the same mental illness, took his own life in 1971 at the age of 22. Well made, compassionate, insightful, and unbearably sad, 'Boy Interrupted' is an important film. Yet, yet... There's a troubling subtext here that is largely taken for granted by the Perry family. Simply put, the Perrys are rich folks, very rich folks. They have an apartment on Manhattan's Upper West Side, a house in the country, etc., etc., and are able to afford the best schools and--once Evan exhibits signs of madness--the very best psychiatric care and facilities that money can buy. When Scott died the family commissioned a renowned sculptor to create a special monument and Scott's brother, Hart Perry (Dana's husband and Evan's father) made a commemorative film at that time. When Evan died, the Perrys commemorated him with 'Boy Interrupted' and helped to fund a new building at one of the facilities that had treated him. These are warm, human gestures which assure that Scott and Evan will not simply vanish from the earth without a trace. But what if the afflicted Scott and Evan Perry had come from impoverished circumstances? No top shelf care. No fancy monuments. No documentary films. No kid glove treatment. Just unadulterated suffering, death, and subsequent, eternal anonymity. That's what happens to the thousands of Scotts and Evans who don't come from money. Think about that reality also.
The Life and Hard Times of Guy Terrifico (2005)
Less than terrifico...
I had high hopes for this one going in but soon became disappointed, then bored, then disaffected--frankly, couldn't finish it. The faux rockumentary premise sounded promising ('Spinal Tap' was a hoot) but despite a few mildly amusing lines, gags, and pratfalls this film mostly recycles clichés about how dissipated and reckless rock musicians can be (yawn). Yes, it's good-natured in a goofy sort of way. Still, I couldn't help but feel that my intelligence was being insulted with simplistic, unoriginal, and very predictable material about a fictional Guy who was inherently uninteresting. Granted, comedy is the hardest thing to do but when it's bad, it's really bad.
Sicko (2007)
A bitter pill to swallow...
I just saw Michael Moore's SICKO. Having seen all his other films, I'd have to rate SICKO probably his best, certainly his most restrained and poignant. It was hard not to tear up watching the segment filmed in Cuba. When one of the 9/11 rescue workers found out, at a Cuban pharmacy, that an inhaler she pays $120 for in the U.S. could be had for about 5 cents in Cuba, she just started crying--in rage, frustration, and shame for an American health care system grotesquely distorted by psychopathic levels of greed, mean-spiritedness, and bureaucratic indifference. Moore's film eloquently argues that the present system, so deeply and cynically dysfunctional and exploitative, needs to be dismantled immediately and replaced by something recognizably just and humane. Americans must truly be a despairing, browbeaten people to put up with this cruel joke of a health care system.
The Black Dahlia (2006)
Big hat, no cattle
Without beating around the bush, Brian DiPalma's BLACK DAHLIA is a lousy movie. Painfully bad, in fact. Yes, it has all the requisite elements of a classic neo-noir: L.A. in the late Forties, perfect period costumes, elaborate sets, shiny automobiles, sultry dames, angst-ridden tough guys, and a grisly murder. What this film lacks, though, is a soul. It LOOKS terrific but the story never coheres, never draws the viewer into its world--because that world is so obviously slick, fake, and contrived. If you want a real neo-noir, watch Polanski's CHINATOWN or Curtis Hansen's far more successful adaptation of a James Elroy novel: L.A. CONFIDENTIAL. THE BLACK DAHLIA stinks.