ENTER THE VOID Now Streaming On Netflix Instant

Now available on Blu ray, DVD, and Netflix Instant:

ENTER THE VOID (Dir. Gaspar Noé, 2009)

After beautifully bombastic credits, which Quentin Tarantino called "Maybe best credit scene of the decade...one of the greatest in cinema history", we see Toyko through the eyes of Nathaniel Brown, a young American drug dealer.

The camera acts as his vision, we only see Brown's face when he looks in the mirror.

Brown smokes a few hits of dimethyltryptamine, aka DMT, and his mind goes on a surreal CGI journey resembling the "Beyond the Infinite" climax of 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY or the wormhole from STAR TREK: THE MOTION PICTURE.

A friend (Cyril Roy) comes by Brown's apartment and accompanies him through the neon drenched streets to a club called "The Void" in order to do a drug deal.

Roy speaks of "The Tibetan Book Of The Dead", a book he lent to Brown, explaining how one's spirit sticks around for a while after death before it is re-incarnated.

When the drug deal at the club goes horribly wrong, Brown is shot by police in the restroom and his spirit does just that - it hovers above watching the people he knew and flashes back to the major events of his life.

He watches his erotic dancer sister (Paz de la Huerta) as she reacts to news of her brother, and we learn of their shared childhood past - most traumatically the violent automobile death of their parents they witnessed from the back seat of the car.

We follow Brown, point of view-wise, through these tangents over and over and it's an engrossing yet at times highly disturbing experience.

It can be frustrating too - I loved it at first, feeling like I was inside something instead of just the normal sensation of watching a movie, then I hated it for a bit wishing Brown's spirit didn't linger so long when watching his sister have sex with her seedy nightclub owner boss (Masato Tanno).

But, hey, in the afterlife what else are you going to do?

I ended up loving it again as it wound its strands into a jarring conclusion.

There's a WAKING LIFE-like philosophical nature to its flow of imagery, and a raw energy to the aftermath our decased protagonist watches that took me in and, well, kind of freaked me out.

With it's 2 hour and 23 minute running time, ENTER THE VOID is too long (there's an extended "Director's Cut" on Blu ray and DVD if one doesn't agree with that), but it's a vivid, overwhelming, and incredibly crafted work.

Director Noé, whose stunning yet also disturbing IRREVERSIBLE blindsided critics back in 2002, is developing a visionary style that can take film goers on an unforgettable ride - though one that may test their patience.

Curious movie lovers looking to venture away from the mainstream into uncertain waters should take him up on this particular challenge.

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ANOTHER YEAR: The Film Babble Blog Review

ANOTHER YEAR (Dir. Mike Leigh, 2010)

As a comfortable married couple living in London, Mike Leigh veterans Jim Broadbent and Ruth Sheen are happily growing old together. Their jobs - he's a geologist; she's a therapist at a local clinic - seem as agreeable as they are to each other, and in their free time they enjoy tending to their large garden.

One of Sheen's co-workers and friends (Lesley Manville) isn't so happy however. She's a frazzled mess barely holding it together, drinking too many glasses of wine and pining for a new man to come into her life.

Manville ends up embarrassingly flirting with Broadbent and Sheen's 30 year old son (Oliver Maltman) at a backyard barbeque for an old college chum (Peter Wight) who's also drinking away his sorrows in a miserable existence.

Over the course of the 4 seasons of a year, we follow these folks through their motions and get to know them in a engagingly emotional way.

When Maltman brings a spirited new girlfriend (Karina Fernandez) home to meet his parents, Manville, who happens to be visiting again, can't hide her shaken feelings. It's as naturalistic as a scene in a movie can be which must the result of Leigh's patented improvisational methods.

Whatever the case, Leigh definitely deserves the Oscar nomination he just got for Best Screenplay for this fine film.

A film in which happily there's no contrivances present - nobody has affairs, there's no shouted speeches, and there's no life changing revelations - there's only pointed reflections on aging and painful neediness.

The entire cast is excellent, but Manville should've gotten a nomination herself for her work here. She embodies all of the flaws of this troubled woman flawlessly. The Academy may not have recognized this, but she was named best actress of the year by the National Board of Review and a best actress runner-up by the National Society of Film Critics so there's that.

"Life's not always kind, is it?" Sheen remarks at one point and it's a apt statement which could act as the tagline for ANOTHER YEAR.

It's a very sad film, but it's not a depressing one. Roger Ebert once said that "all bad movies are depressing, no good movies are."

Well, this quietly profound movie is very good and it sure didn't get me down.

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Blu Ray/DVD Review: FLIPPED

This period piece comic drama flopped when it was released for a limited run last August (it briefly played in the Raleigh area). It's now out on Blu ray and DVD for another chance to win folks over:

FLIPPED (Dir. Rob Reiner, 2010)

It's been a long time since Rob Reiner has made a decent movie.

The man who in his early career gave us such classics as THIS IS SPINAL TAP and THE PRINCESS BRIDE has lately churned out dreck like RUMOR HAS IT and THE BUCKET LIST.

So while it's pleasant surprise that his newest is from the Rob Reiner that made STAND BY ME - not the Rob Reiner that made NORTH it's also sad to say that FLIPPED is still below par.

Set in the same era of STAND BY ME (though the novel it's based on by Wendelin Van Draanen was set in modern times), FLIPPED follows the budding relationship of a young boy (Callan McAuliffe) and girl (Madeline Carroll) who live across the street from each other in a Michigan suburb.

Things are pretty rocky off the bat as McAuliffe is annoyed by Carroll's constant affection. It doesn't help matters that the boy's father (Anthony Edwards) puts down the girl's family by way of their unkempt yard.

McAuliffe is the embodiment of a "Boy's Life" cover - a well-groomed blonde-haired baseball-loving all American boy. He's embarrassed by being stalked by the weird girl who brings his family eggs from her own chickens she's raising in her backyard.

Carroll, with her long hair and plaid attire, is a pre-teen hippie just waiting for the revolution to kick in. She loves a sycamore tree that towers over the neighborhood and makes the local paper when she refuses to climb down from it so it can be cut down. A little of her spunky spirit goes a long way.

When Carroll catches McAuliffe throwing away the most recent batch of eggs, her infatuation begins to fade and an awkward separation sets in between them.

Carroll begins a friendship with McAuliffe's grandfather (Frasier's John Mahoney) who helps her clean up her yard while the boy stews watching from his window.

The attempts to enhance this slight material with subplots involving Carroll's retarded uncle, her pompadoured brothers who are trying to break into the early '60s rock scene, and her dreaming painter father (Aidan Quinn) don't go anywhere - they just pile up as sideline clichés.

Not to mention the thankless nothing roles played by Rebecca De Mornay and Penelope Ann Miller as the young couples' housewife mothers.

The film uses voice-over narration to get us into the heads of McAuliffe and Carroll as they recount the same events from their contrasting points of view (he said, she said style), but its a tedious process as we can guess exactly what supposed insight is coming way before it is said.

Nonetheless it is a step up from the films Reiner has made in the 15 years since THE AMERICAN PRESIDENT (a still cheesy film yet one that has an undeniable charm) and it does have some touching moments amid its strained Spielbergian sunniness and lackluster dialog.

FLIPPED is a forgettable throwaway, but a nice try for a once acclaimed film maker hoping to get back in the game.

Don't give up yet, Meathead! I, for one, am still pulling for you.

Bonus Features: The DVD only has one extra - "'Flipped': Anatomy of a Near Kiss" (3:18), but the Blu ray has 3 - "The Differences Between a Boy and a Girl" (6:32), "Embarrassing Egg-scuses" (5:01), and "How to Make the Best Volcano" (4:54).

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