Thumbs-up: The A.V. Club’s Minneapolis-St. Paul International Film Festival picks

I contributed four capsule reviews for this story on the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Film Festival. Here’s a sample; read the whole thing at the link:

Reykjavik-Rotterdam
Iceland’s foreign-film Oscar submission rises above its potentially cliched noir setup—the reformed ex-thief pulled back for one last job—with twisty plotting, kinetic violence, and a rock-solid performance by Baltasar Kormár. Reminiscent of David Cronenberg’s recent crime thrillers, not least because of Kormár’s resemblance to Viggo Mortensen, Reykjavik interweaves dual plotlines as his crooked sailor plays a battle of wits against a stuffy captain to smuggle a load of bootleg liquor, while on land his boss plans to steal his wife. The movie’s commercial success in Europe has already spawned a forthcoming American remake with Mark Wahlberg.

Night Catches Us
The rise and fall of the militant Black Panther Party has no shortage of tragedy or far-reaching political themes, but Tanya Hamilton’s Night Catches Us works its magic on a smaller, human-sized scale. In 1976 Philadelphia, years after the revolutionary movement’s implosion, two former Panthers (Anthony Mackie and Kerry Washington) rekindle a simmering romance when Mackie returns after a long exile. But his reappearance also brings back old ghosts and old grievances, and inadvertently inspires a new generation to repeat the mistakes of the past. The universally strong cast includes The Wire veterans Wendell Pierce and Jamie Hector.

The Miscreants Of Taliwood
Australian documentarian George Gittoes is either impressively brave or foolishly reckless, but you have to admire the chutzpah of any Western filmmaker who walks right into the heart of Pakistan’s Taliban-controlled Peshawar region. And Gittoes indeed risks the ire of the Muslim fundamentalists more than once as he explores the cultural conflict between the Taliban and Peshawar’s surprisingly vibrant, earthy low-budget film industry—the “miscreants” of the title. As the religious extremists begin firebombing video stores, Gittoes dives into the local movie scene, working his role in a campy Pashto-language action movie into his own documentary. The result is often outlandishly surreal, insightful, and never less than compelling.

Originally published on avclub.com April 15, 2010 as part of a group-written roundup; I wrote the reviews of Night Catches Us, The Miscreants Of Taliwood, Will Not Stop There, and Reykjavik-Rotterdam. Read the complete article.

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