Creative Loafing Sarasota: Film (Old)

A bittersweet baseball tale

Tue, 21 Apr 2009 04:00:00 MST

Sugar tracks the odyssey of a Dominican ballplayer.... By Eric Snider Call it the Dominican Dream. The small Caribbean country produces more good baseball players per square mile than any place else on earth. Every Big League franchise has a an academy there, where prospects live and learn the game under strict supervision, and with the hope of getting signed, invited to spring training, landing on a minor league club in the States and then fulfilling the biggest dream of all: making a Major League roster. Miguel "Sugar" Santos is one

Best of the Suncoast Readers' Poll: Part One

Tue, 21 Apr 2009 04:00:00 MST

By CL Staff Fill out my Wufoo form!...

Paper boy

Tue, 14 Apr 2009 04:00:00 MST

State of Play's thrills put reporters above the fold.... By Curt Holman The political thriller State of Play finds a fresh angle on the depth of Russell Crowe's talents as an actor. Slovenly but uncompromising journalist Cal MacAffrey may not be as memorable a Crowe role as the brooding gladiator or unstrung mathematician, but it reveals how an actor can subsume personal feelings in pursuit of a truthful, fleshed-out character. "Russell had such contempt for the press to begin with. He hates reporters," State of Play director Kevin Macdonald told The New

It's a wrap!

Tue, 07 Apr 2009 04:00:00 MST

Some of my favorite flicks at the 11th Annual Sarasota Film Festival.... By Cooper Levey-Baker Despite well-publicized changes at this year's installment of the Sarasota Film Festival, one thing remained constant: the remarkably high quality of the movies selected for screening. Here's a recap of some of the best films I caught last week, some of which may get theatrical distribution later in the year. If not, you'll just have to catch 'em on DVD. Food Inc. After catching a retrospective screening of Hal Ashby's whimsical 1971 feature Harold and Maude, I turned to a

Adventureland finds charm in the mysteries of Pittsburgh

Tue, 31 Mar 2009 04:00:00 MST

Adventureland finds charm in the mysteries of Pittsburgh... By Curt Holman Flashing back to the '80s, Adventureland sets up tension between Falco and Lou Reed to convey the crossroads facing its young heroes. The charming coming-of-age comedy primarily takes place at Pittsburgh's seedy Adventureland amusement park, where "Rock Me Amadeus" plays incessantly on loudspeakers like a form of psychological warfare. For the park's overeducated, underemployed summer workers, Lou Reed tunes such as "Satellite of Love" soothe jangled nerves after long shifts of handing out stuffed pandas and cleaning up vomit. Adventureland's

Film scouts

Tue, 24 Mar 2009 04:00:00 MST

Tom Hall and Holly Herrick scour cinemas to find the right blend of movies for the Sarasota FIlm Festival.... By Cooper Levey-Baker With just days till opening night of the Sarasota Film Festival, Tom Hall and Holly Herrick are sprinting to the finish. Neon green Post-it notes proliferate across Hall's desk, which is set flush against Herrick's in an "L" shape. DVD cases crowd nearby shelves. A disemboweled Amazon.com shipping box lies discarded on the jewel green carpet. "S. H. I. M. P.?" asks festival programmer Herrick, without looking up from her laptop screen. The festival's ticketing website goes live tonight at

Getting schooled

Tue, 17 Mar 2009 04:00:00 MST

The world inside a French classroom... By J.r. Jones France had its own little Obama moment last spring at the Cannes film festival, when Laurent Cantet's unromanticized schoolroom drama The Class became the first domestic feature in 21 years to win the Palme d'Or, and the white director was surrounded at the dais by the multiracial cast of kids he recruited from an inner-city public school to act in the movie. Their work electrifies The Class, which abandons the cliches of the inspirational-teacher drama and wades hip deep into

Who watches the Watchmen? Um, I do.

Tue, 10 Mar 2009 04:00:00 MST

Zack Snyder's ham hands don't ruin a legendary graphic novel.... By Brian Ries There are two ways you can go when filming a comic book movie these days: adaptation or recreation. For the big franchise heroes with an immense amount of history behind them, adaptation has worked well at reintroducing the movie-going public to iconic characters. You open yourself up to lots of bitching by comic fanboys when you condense or expand too much outside of accepted continuity, but directors like Sam Raimi (Spider-Man) and Christopher Nolan (The Dark Knight) have done a

A geek's guide to understanding Watchmen

Tue, 03 Mar 2009 04:00:00 MST

Deconstructing the next big super flick.... By Carlton Hargro Last year was a big one for comic book movies. A bunch of films that were adapted from comics -- including Hellboy, The Dark Knight and Iron Man, among others -- hit the big screen in 2008 and proved to be cash cows at the box office (and in the case of Dark Knight, critical darlings). Now, with the new year in full swing, it looks like 2009 is going to be another doozie for super folk at the cinema.

Joaquin Phoenix gets beached in Brooklyn in Two Lovers

Wed, 25 Feb 2009 04:00:00 MST

By Curt Holman Most of the downbeat romantic drama Two Lovers transpires in the timeless corners of Brooklyn, at mom-and-pop dry cleaners or the kind of blocky apartments where neighbors call to each other from opposite windows while jazz music plays from an unseen source. When we first notice cell phones or DVDs in Two Lovers, they almost seem like contemporary anachronisms that snuck into a period piece set a half-century ago. Director and co-writer James Gray places Two Lovers very much in

Guerrilla in the mist

Tue, 17 Feb 2009 04:00:00 MST

Even after four and a half hours, Che Guevara is as hard to see as ever.... By J.r. Jones Pay a visit to thechestore.com -- "For All Your Revolutionary Needs!" -- and you'll find Ernesto "Che" Guevara's likeness printed on everything from T-shirts, tank tops and hoodies to wallets, key chains and lighters. The irony of a Marxist guerrilla becoming a merchandising phenomenon, which both exalts and degrades the ideals he fought for, is already well noted. But the Che craze also raises the bar for anyone hoping to dramatize his life. Flattened into two dimensions, Guevara can be

Cashed out

Tue, 10 Feb 2009 04:00:00 MST

The International overdraws on financial espionage... By Curt Holman Apart from America's repo men, probably the only people popping champagne corks over last fall's financial meltdown were the producers of The International. Doubtless the filmmakers wondered whether Clive Owen and Naomi Watts were big enough names to open their fair-to-middlin' espionage-type thriller about a nefarious global bank. Then the markets crashed and megabanks hit up U.S. tax payers for bailout money, without curtailing their corporate fat-cat ways. With financial institutions emerging as the zeitgeist's villains of the moment, The

Seam effort

Wed, 04 Feb 2009 04:00:00 MST

Scintillating Coraline opens a case of curious buttons... By Curt Holman The fantastical opening credits sequence of Coraline superbly sets the stage for the eerie wonders to come. An unseen, scissor-handed figure sews and dresses a rag doll in an otherworldly environment. At one point a needle pops through the coarse fabric and JUTS RIGHT OUT AT THE AUDIENCE, in one of those amusing show-offy moments we expect from 3-D movies, but that still takes us by surprise. Coraline employs most of its 3-D effects more subtly but with seamless effectiveness.

Total recall

Wed, 28 Jan 2009 04:00:00 MST

Waltz With Bashir draws on wartime memories... By Curt Holman Waltz With Bashir, Ari Folman's surreal remembrance of Israel's 1982 war with Lebanon, ends on the most wrenching note imaginable, yet leaving the theater offers no relief to the audience. The real world only amplifies the movie's disheartening themes. Folman, a filmmaker and Lebanon War veteran, uses splashy animation for his fascinating nonfiction account of the damage war inflicts on innocent civilians and victorious soldiers alike. Viewers steep in the horrors of the Lebanon War and the psychological trauma of

Punch-drunk love: The Wrestler

Wed, 21 Jan 2009 04:00:00 MST

Mickey Rourke calls it a comeback in The Wrestler... By Curt Holman Randy "The Ram" Robinson brings a razor blade to a wrestling match in one of The Wrestler's first scenes. Initially, director Darren Aronofsky watches Randy (Mickey Rourke) from a distance, his camera taking in the athlete's weathered but expansive musculature. Right before the bout, Aronofsky comes in for a close-up of Randy hiding a piece of razor on his person. During the bruising, blustery, low-rent match, Randy secretly uses the blade not against his opponent, but on himself, so his