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 Ask the Dust
Colin Farrell is one of those talented actors that inevitably
become more famous for their off-screen actions than for
their performances in movies. No matter how good they are
on the big screen, they simply cannot overcome the prejudice
of audience perception. In his first performance since the
release of his sex tape, Farrell again bares all for the
cameras (although audiences hoping for another full-frontal
shot will have to settle for a well-lit close-up of his bottom)
while playing very much to type as "bad boy" Italian-American
writer Arturo Bandini in the film adaptation of John Fante's
semi-autobiographical novel Ask the Dust. It's a studied
performance, notably absent of Farrell's trademark Irish
accent, and one that reveals that he knows how to tone it
down when the time calls for it. Unfortunately, this was
not that time. The film, gently directed by Chinatown screenwriter
Robert Towne, tracks the often volatile relationship between
Bandini, a scrappy young writer who dreams of becoming a
writer and marrying a beautiful blonde, and Camilla (Selma
Hayek), a fiery young Mexican who hopes to snag herself a
WASP. Set in the racially-divided Los Angeles of the 1930s,
the film is beautifully art directed and photographed (the
city becomes its own character), but ultimately suffers from
an overly grandiose script (characters frequently talk as
if they are lifting dialogue directly from one of Fante's
novels) and Farrell's surprisingly stiff performance. As
Bandini, Farrell often speaks in such laboriously studied
speech that his words come off as expressionless. And that's
too bad. Having seen his most recent, er, "indie work," we
all know he's capable of a much more rowdy performance than
this. -- Ken Knox
A Year Without Love
Set in the mid-1990s, Anahí Berneri's thoughtful,
penetrating film about a young Argentinean writer (Juan Minujin)
stricken with HIV centers on the main character's search
for love and life while grappling with painful solitude and
a plummeting T cell count. Based on the diary of real-life
writer Pablo Perez (who co-wrote the screenplay with Berneri),
A Year Without Love won the Teddy Award (best gay feature)
at the 2005 Berlin Film Festival in addition to laurels at
the New York and Los Angeles gay and lesbian film festivals.
Living with his mentally unstable aunt (Mimí Ardú)
in a small flat in Buenos Aires and working as a French teacher
for little money, the increasingly withdrawn Pablo decides
to keep a diary documenting his quest for love through personal
ads in gay magazines. Unfortunately, he seems to settle for
anonymous sex in porno theaters and hook-ups in the dance
clubs he frequents with his best friend Nicolas (Carlos Echevarría).
Reluctant to be used as a guinea pig in the growing success
of HIV anti-retroviral cocktail therapies, Pablo instead
prefers a homegrown regiment of vitamins and herbal medicines
against the best advice of his doctors. With his health deteriorating
and his familial relationships strained, the character is
drawn into a small, illicit S&M circle and soon finds
himself becoming dangerously infatuated with Martin (Javier
Van de Couter), the young partner of the group's leader,
Baez (aka "the Sheriff," played by Osmar Nuñez).
The film conjures the meditative, probing qualities of
Julian Schnabel's masterful Before Night Falls, about another
writer (Cuban poet Reinaldo Arenas) stricken with HIV. But
unlike the gorgeous, painterly canvases and dreamlike quality
of Falls, A Year Without Love offers a stark, unflinching
look at one man's isolation and his struggle to soothe his
physical and emotional pain while turning that hurt into
a perverse sort of pleasure.
Berneri's camera quietly yet steadfastly eavesdrops on
Pablo's narrative, following him from the sickly grey-greens
of hospital waiting rooms through the bustling streets of
Buenos Aires, into the shadowy depths of porn theaters and
S&M lairs, and back to his increasingly claustrophobic
apartment.
The adorable, stubbly-faced Minujin projects a well of
pain, regret, and desperation in his large, alluring black
eyes. Yet the actor never lets the audience forget that this
is an intelligent, reflective man who is very much aware
of his actions and their potential consequences. -- Christopher
Wallenberg
The Zodiac
Suspense yarns built around serial killers are a dime a
dozen these days. Ever since Silence of the Lambs set the
bar extremely high for tales about mentally deranged psychopaths
with a knack for creative killing, the crime thriller genre
has become the hot market to over-saturate. What sets Alexander
Bulkley's The Zodiac apart, however, is not only its modestly
indie production values and budget, but its emphasis on the
characters' reactions to the evil that invades their sleepy
Northern California town. Would that all the effort paid
off. Based on the infamously unsolved murders that occurred
in and around the town of Vallejo during the late 60's, the
movie depicts with vivid brutality the killings themselves
(often to the point of -- I'll say it -- overkill), then
shifts the focus to the young detective (Grey's Anatomy's
hunky Justin Chambers) assigned to the case. Under pressure
from an insistent police chief (Philip Baker Hall) intent
on saving face and his increasingly paranoid wife (Robin
Tunney), Lt. Matt Parish slowly begins to crumble, eventually
taking his anger out on his loved ones as he realizes that
things are beyond his control. It's mostly good stuff. Yet
even when it works, the movie falls just short of compelling.
Perhaps because director Bulkley himself grew up in Napa
Valley, he took it for granted that viewers will immediately
connect to the film's characters; for all the film's focus
on a more "intimate" narrative, The Zodiac feels
surprisingly cold and detached. An effectively sinister tone
pervades the script (penned by Bulkley and his older brother/producing
partner Kelly), but it is often marred by Bulkley's insistence
on turning the story into a steamy potboiler populated by
too many cinematic clichés (a reporter bangs away
on his typewriter while a lighted cigarette dangles from
his mouth, the killer prepares his weapons while playing
opera music) and an abruptly anticlimactic ending. Though
Bulkley deserves credit for attempting something different
with a tired genre, the horoscope for this Zodiac is, unfortunately,
pretty grim. -- Ken Knox
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