Tag: Plaza de Oro

The Valley of Death – Doc puts audience on the front lines of Afghanistan in ‘Restrepo’

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Misha Pemble is startled by the sound of gunfire during a firefight across the valley with insurgents at the Restrepo outpost in the Korengal Valley of Kunar Province, Afghanistan. Below, Pemble, left, and Murphy, right, from the Second Platoon, enjoy a joke. At bottom, clothes hang out to dry as rain clouds gather over the Restrepo bunker.
Misha Pemble is startled by the sound of gunfire during a firefight across the valley with insurgents at the Restrepo outpost in the Korengal Valley of Kunar Province, Afghanistan. Below, Pemble, left, and Murphy, right, from the Second Platoon, enjoy a joke. At bottom, clothes hang out to dry as rain clouds gather over the Restrepo bunker.

You don’t need a Wikileaks account to know that things aren’t going well for America in Afghanistan; you just need to watch the gripping two-hour documentary “Restrepo.”

Embedded within a small company in Northern Afghanistan, filmmakers Tim Hetherington and Sebastian Junger stayed with U.S. soldiers for a 15-month tour of duty. The company has been ordered to build an outpost that overlooks one of the deadliest areas in Afghanistan, the Korengal Valley. The mountaintop is in the “middle of nowhere,” and though they can see the larger base camp from on high and watch as helicopters land and take off, they may as well be in another country, as one soldier says.

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So Long and Adieu – ‘Farewell’ uncovers a true spy tale of the 1980s

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“Farewell” features strong lead performances from two directors-turned-actors in a story of Russian espionage. One is Emir Kusturica, in whose films “Black Cat, White Cat” and “Underground” we got some of the best Eastern European films of the late ’90s. The other is Guillaume Canet, the French director of the very exciting 2006 thriller “Tell No One,” who has a long acting résumé.

In “Farewell” they make an interesting pair, as Kusturica plays Sergei Gregoriev, a Soviet colonel who has grown disillusioned with life under communism. He is looking to leak state secrets in order to have a better life for his son, whom he rarely talks to, and his wife, whom he is cheating on with his secretary.

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Run Run Run Runaway – Two kids set off for Dublin in ‘Kisses’

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Shane Curry, left, and Kelly O'Neill, right, play teen runaways in "Kisses."
Shane Curry, left, and Kelly O’Neill, right, play teen runaways in “Kisses.”

Two Irish pre-teens get in trouble with their abusive families and runaway to the big city in “Kisses,” a cute but not always successful film from director Lance Daly.

Dylan (Shane Curry) lives with a drunk, unemployed dad and a mom struggling to make ends meet. We first see the father yelling death threats at a toaster, and that’s the mood we see him in for most of the opening sequence. No wonder Dylan pines to curl up under headphones to the comfort of his Gameboy. Next door, Kylie (Kelly O’Neill) suffers spoken abuse from her sister, is made to walk her infant sister around in a pram and hide from her creepy uncle.

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Hugo Rethought – Oliver Stone examines the South American revolution

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Director Oliver Stone and Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez talk to the media in Stone's documentary "South of the Border." Courtesy photo

Director Oliver Stone and Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez talk to the media in Oliver Stone’s documentary “South of the Border.”
Courtesy photo

First Fidel, now Hugo.

Director Oliver Stone doesn’t mind incurring the wrath of the mainstream media with his documentaries, which he has recently been releasing in between his studio features. “Finding Fidel” and “Comandante” attempted to rescue Castro from decades of demonization, with Stone sitting down and chatting up Cuba’s leader. In the new “South of the Border,” Stone travels down to Venezuela to do the same thing with Hugo Chavez.

The brisk and informative “South of the Border” begins with the talking bobble heads of Fox News’ morning show, snarking about how Chavez must be insane because he eats a bowl of cocoa every day. The most intelligent of the three hosts steps in to bravely ask if they mean coca. Nobody is really sure, and who cares, right? (Knowledge is so elitist.) It’s a scene that promises to melt your brain right there and then, and then make one despair for modern media in general. But after a quick history lesson on the West’s finagling in South America, Stone brings in Hugo Chavez and sits down with the man we’ve been led to believe is a bloodthirsty monster.

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Selfish Improvement – Only star power saves ‘Multiple Sarcasms’ from dullsville

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Timothy Hutton, left, and Laila Robins share a scene in the mid-life-self-discovery-themed rom-com "Multiple Sarcasms." Jessica Miglio photo

Timothy Hutton, left, and Laila Robins share a scene in the mid-life-self-discovery-themed rom-com “Multiple Sarcasms.”
Jessica Miglio photo

“Multiple Sarcasms” tips its hat early to the kind of film it wants to be when it reveals its protagonist, a depressed architect played by Timothy Hutton, has been going to see the film “Starting Over” several times. That 1979 Burt Reynolds-Jill Clayburgh-Candice Bergen romantic comedy was the kind of mainstream film that, by no means a classic, looks like Ingmar Bergman compared to the rom-coms that Hollywood now squeezes out.

A first feature written and directed by industry veteran Brooks Branch, “Multiple Sarcasms” sounds like a comedy from the title but is a drama interlaced with just enough comic moments to keep it interesting. For a bit.

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