Lords of Dogtown
Valiant
Talk To Her
Lords of Dogtown
"Lords of Dogtown" takes place in 1970's Venice, California and follows the young and wild Z-Boys - the inventors of skateboarding, as we know it today. This biopic features great 1970's music and director Catherine Hardwicke convincingly catches the atmosphere of the time and place. This is in many ways a fascinating story - but not a very well-told one. You never truly get under the skin of the characters, which isn't due to bad acting, but to bad narrative flow and clumsy character development. Original Z-Boy Stacy Peralta wrote the screenplay, and you get the feeling that he was too concerned about what he remembers to focus on creating a cinematically well-turned narrative. Peralta succeeded better telling this story in his intriguing documentary from 2001 "Dogtown and Z-Boys."
( Julie Vinten )
This quirky little story is about the birth of skateboarding as a serious sport and makes for a highly enjoyable if very flawed film. Set in Venice, California, in the mid 1970s, a group of young friends form a skateboarding team under the guidance of Skip (Heath Ledger), a drunk but basically decent "Dogtown" local. Thanks to their exhilarating skills they quickly rise to fame and the lure of lucrative sponsorship deals. "Lords of Dogtown" is intriguing watching and it nicely captures the inimitable strangeness of the '70s, but the dialogue lacks any depth and the characters are never more than stunt-performing cartoons. Newcomer Emile Hirsch stands out though as the edgy Jay, and definitely looks set for bigger and better things.
( Laimons Juris G )
Valiant
This animated feature about a bunch of brave messenger pigeons in the British army during World War II boasts vocal performances from a long line of famous British actors. They do a good job, but that can't salvage this tiresomely mediocre movie. "Valiant" is unquestionably both cute and amiable, it just isn't entirely interesting to watch. The visual look and the narrative are rather underdeveloped and formulaic and the characters aren't exactly inspired. The closest "Valiant" comes to being funny is a mouse who speaks English with a French accent, which somehow isn't quite funny enough. Kids will detect straight away that this is no Pixar film. Nevertheless, the movie is watchable and good enough for a one-time DVD rental when there is nothing for the kids to watch on TV.
1/2( Julie Vinten )
This is a spirited but failed attempt by a British animation film to break the Pixar/Disney stranglehold on the genre. Despite its big name voices and some fairly impressive animation sequences, "Valiant" just doesn't have the charm of "Finding Nemo" or the wry sophistication of "The Incredibles." The story is about a diminutive pigeon called Valiant (Ewan McGregor) who signs up for an elite corps of pigeon carriers in WW2 to try and get a vital message through enemy lines. The tiresomely overdone war references will be lost on children, and the story as a whole would be cringingly embarrassing if it weren't for the fact that it's in animated form. The only thing that saves "Valiant" from being a total flop is the comic relief supplied by Ricky Gervais ("The Office").
( Laimons Juris G )
Talk To Her
Pedro Almodovar's ("All About My Mother") 2002 movie "Talk to Her" is a resonant piece of filmmaking. It's a visually and emotionally beautiful feature - an oddly moving, yet utterly disturbing melodrama. This Spanish director presents us with a complicated story told with incredible effortlessness. The surreal love story contains a perfectly composed narrative and rich, multifaceted characters. Almodovar has a distinctive and eccentric style and puts forward a challenging and controversial view of the world. "Talk to Her" is perhaps less kitschy, but just as extravagant as he always is. Nothing is black and white - this movie forces the viewer to reassess their beliefs on what is morally right or wrong. Only Almodovar makes movies like this one, and "Talk to Her" is one of his best.
( Julie Vinten )
Almodovar's second from last film is a sublime soap opera that is in turns brilliant, brilliant and brilliant. "Talk to Her" is simple enough to describe but extremely hard to define. Two lonely men are brought together when the two women they love end up in hospital in a coma. Benigno (Javier Camara) is a nurse who oversees Alicia (Leonor Watling): he talks to her, pampers her and is hopelessly in love with her. Marco (Dario Grandinetti) is an El Pais journalist keeping vigil over his matador girlfriend who was gored into a coma. Almodovar weaves together the many elements of this rich, satisfying and provocative film with almost nonchalant virtuosity, at once challenging notions of gender, narrative and morality. The short silent film he sneaks in is a mini-masterpiece in itself.
( Laimons Juris G )
