Ida *, Dance of Reality, The Rover

     Shot in crisp black and white, Ida has the feel of a good short story lovingly transferred to the screen.  The film deals with the aftershocks of the Holocaust in 1950's Poland when a novice to a convent learns about her heritage.  I heard a fellow filmgoer complaining that it wasn't uplifting, but I found the spare, nuanced style and the shabbiness of communist Poland uplifting because there's little of the audience prompting we have in homegrown movies.  It's a small film, well acted and beautifully shot.

    Alejandro Jodorowsky is famous for a few over-the-top semi-surreal films made since the late 60's.  If you've seen the films, you know why there are few of them and how hard it must have been to find the production cash.  His latest film, Dance of Reality,  is semi-autobiographical in the style of Fellini's Amarcord and there are moments when it achieves that dizzying balance between the mundane and the sublime.   "I don't want to live in a world of dressed up dogs," says a dying anti-fascist with his last breath in the midst of the dictator's doggie costume contest.   While this film apes Fellini's freak show tendencies, it feels dated and objectionable this late in history.  Dance of Reality is chockfull of whores, drag queens and earth mother types that might have had (shock) value back in the day, but now feel as condescending as any other stereotype.  I appreciate his attempts at subverting narrative expectations, but I wish he was better at realizing that goal.  The documentary about Jodorowsky's attempt to make Dune, Jodorowsky's Dune, is far more entertaining.

       Ever since his performances in Memento and LA Confidential,  I've been waiting for another great Guy Pearce film.  He can act and he's got those razor sharp cheekbones.  The Rover is hyped as a dystopian revenge flick that takes place in the bleak outback of Oz.  The film costars Robert Pattison of Twilight fame as a slow witted hick bank robber.  Unfortunately, the whole exercise feels like a reboot of The Road Warrior sucked dry of fun.  It's not a dystopia of excitement, but a dystopia of meaningless angst and violence.  Nicely shot, well acted, humorless and empty.