Change Your Image
slly343
Reviews
Clean (2004)
Incredible performances in this soul searching indie!
I was in New York a month back and I had the sudden urge for an indie pic so - on a whim - I went into Landmark Sunshine on Houston and took a risk on this film (I had never heard of it). But what a delight! This film has courage! Daring performances. Verite cinematography. The acting was incredible and the mix of languages and ethnicities was quite original. Not mention the rock scene overtones. Nolte's face - as always - was loaded with energy. And no wonder Cheung got best actress for this role at Cannes and Berlin. She was nearly flawless. I think they could have gone farther into the pitfalls of the music scene and shown what caused her addiction to flourish in that environment - they mainly focused on her recovery. The camera movement was a bit nauseating at times, but the story was very well development - a lot of thought went into. The film is certainly worth the rent when it comes out on DVD.
Life Document 2: Identity (2002)
Great short film!
I caught this film at the Asian American Film Festival in New York in July. It was part of a program of films by or about South Asians, and this is by far the best film in the program. Very impressive. You know that it's good when you get to the end and you don't want it to stop! The logline is a little misleading, because the film is really more of an exploration of the main character's obsession with Ahmad, but not because of his conversion to Islam. It's almost like George has always had a weird fascination with this guy that he's known since college. I don't blame him. Ahmad was such an amazingly drawn character, so charismatic and brilliant. The performances in the film were great in general. And there was a lot of humor, which I thought was great, considering that the subject doesn't necessarily lend itself to humor... And George was a perfect foil. While it was a little thin on production value, the film really inspiring!