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Reviews
Envy (2004)
This movie is secretly brilliant
The central image of this movie is a dog taking a crap. Knowing this, I can't imagine how anyone could judge Envy by the same criteria as a "real" movie. This movie is stupid and it knows it's stupid. It's fully aware of that fact, so don't bother using that as a critique. Accept the stupidity into your heart and let this film melt your brain with comedy. In many mainstream comedies, audiences have to wade through some cheesy or worn out plot to get to the funny stuff. But at the end of the day the stories these movies are telling aren't really any good, they're merely a labored suggestion of substance. Ultimately the reason we watch them is to see some funny performers doing funny things, not for the narrative. However good a movie like the 40-Year-Old Virgin maybe, Bergman it ain't! The story only really functions to support the comedy. So then why not make a joke out of the plot too? Why not make a comedy that is one long extended joke? Just enjoy the insanity of the brilliant cast and be thankful that Envy has the common decency to forgo the usual pretense of profundity and focus on poop jokes instead.
Now this next point may be a harder argument to make and may contradict my last point, but if you do look closely at the recurring gags and images in Envy, the dare-I-say motifs of the film, you might find that it is actually a very nasty spoof of our consumer culture. Plus, the main conflict of the film is that the characters have such a hard time reconciling their greed for material possessions and their moral obligations to other human beings. Jack Black's character even utters a line that I think many people actually live by: "Nice things make life better." So perhaps Envy is secretly brilliant and is merely hiding behind a mask of utter stupidity. That would make it the inverse of most movies out there today (I'm thinking of Inception right now).
Tamo i ovde (2009)
New Entry into the Indie Greats Canon
A movie like "Here and There" shows us just how good movies can be, even when they're made on a tiny budget. With a pitch-perfect cast (that includes Cindy Lauper!) and a script that hinges on a clever conceit, "Here and There" straddles the line between comedy and drama in the best indie fashion and delivers emotions that register on many different levels. The movie's script, about a depressed NYC jazz musician who finds himself stuck in Belgrade, Serbia, beautifully explores the different facets of it's protagonist's plight with humor, drama, a hard won humanism, and above all, a light touch that is never heavy handed. The film moves along briskly, whisking you away in it's narrative current, and before you realize it you're enmeshed in the character's lives and you're heart is beating along with them. Recommended for anyone in need of a good story told expertly or for anyone who thinks independent films are dead. Take a look at "Here and There" and you'll discover that they are alive and going strong. I'm sure Jarmusch would be proud of new writer/director Darko Lungulov who combines the tone and aesthetic of the indies with the wit and showmanship of classic Hollywood screen writing.