| | | There's more honesty in this stunning black comedy than in a dozen documentaries. Hilarious and brutally unsentimental look at an unattractive 7th grader as she struggles to cope with un-attentive parents, snobbish classmates, a smart older brother, an attractive younger sister, and her own insecurities. Todd Solondz's moral vision is authentic and -- for all the seemingly cruelty of the humour -- far more compasionate than feel-good tripe will ever be.. "Seventh-grade is no fun. Especially for Dawn Weiner when everyone at school calls you 'Dog-Face' or 'Wiener-Dog.' Not to mention if your older brother is 'King of the Nerds' and your younger sister is a cutesy ballerina who gets you in trouble but is your parents' favorite. And that's just the beginning--her life seems to be falling apart when she faces rejection from the older guy in her brother's band that she has a crush on, her parents want to tear down her 'Special People's Club' clubhouse, and her sister is abducted.... " DVD Features: aspect ratio 1.85:1 . Available Subtitles: English, Spanish, French . Available Audio Tracks: English (Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo) . Sundance Film Festival, Grand Jury Prize, Winner, 1996 |
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| | | Todd Solondz (STORYTELLING, WELCOME TO THE DOLLHOUSE) is a brilliant unsentimental artist, and his tragi-comic gaze takes in almost the entirety of modern life here in this sweeping study of desire and loneliness. In perfectly post-modern fashion it's scathingly funny and shockingly bleak simultaneously. The ensemble cast of characters centers around the lives of three sisters: Joy (Jane Adams), an awkward, naive, and unlucky musician; Helen (Lara Flynn Boyle), a beautiful, self-obsessed writer; and Trish (Cynthia Stevenson), a conservative housewife who is married to Bill (Dylan Baker), a psychiatrist harboring an unhealthy fascination for young boys. Other dysfunctional characters include the sisters' unhappy parents, Lenny and Mona Jordan (Ben Gazzara and Louise Lasser), and the lonely, sex-obsessed Allen (Philip Seymour Hoffman), who lives next to Helen and goes to Bill for therapy. The cover art is by genius cartoonist Daniel Clowes (GHOST WORLD) One of the sub-plots Solondz is unsentimental about here is a pedophile father molesting one of his son's friends, and it's rough going. (I think this is the only movie given an NC-17 rating for solely thematic reasons.) Some criticize Solondz for not being judgmental enough, as if the artist's job is to compile lists of good people and bad people and send them to their appropriate rewards. (I think that's God's job or society's job and that the artist's job is to observe and comment on God's and society's work.) Widescreen letterbox - 1.85:1 . Audio: English (Dolby Digital 2.0 Surround) . Available subtitles: English, Spanish, French. |
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| | | Todd Solondz, director of WELCOME TO THE DOLLHOUSE and the HAPPINESS, ups the ante on his already controversial career with this ruthless satire. Broken into two unrelated chapters, "Fiction" follows college girl Selma Blair (CRUEL INTENTIONS) through a degrading sexual encounter with her writing teacher (Robert Wisdom), while the less concise "Non-Fiction" chronicles the mutual exploitation of a shallow documentary filmmaker (Paul Giamatti doing a near-parody of director Solondz) and his clueless subject, a suburban high school slacker named Scooby (Mark Webber). Solondz calls 'em like he sees 'em, and it is not pretty. but it's frequently hilarious. He's bracingly, ruthlessly unsentimental, and has a unique loathing for white lies and political correctness. His distaste for the comforting falsehood isn't a winner's contempt for the crutches of the weak. Quite the opposite! He's an ugly, alarmingly frail guy who was doubtless the subject of a lot of polite pity growing up. He's also a genius, who was aware of it and resented it. Both films that make up STORYTELLING are marvelous, but the Selma Blair story is the stand-out, and it thankfully presented here uncut in unrated form. (It's a two-sided disc with the R-rated version on one side, unrated version on the other.) Without giving away any details, I promise you it's the most politically-incorrect film you'll see any time soon, and contains a blunt and alarming Selma Blair sex scene that reminds us we still have some taboos left-not taboos about anything as trivial as sex acts, but about attitudes and words. |
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