Why So Blu?

Encapsulated Movie Reviews – Six New Indie Titles

Smaller cinema waits for no movie man or woman as witnessed by the six indie features donning their creative wares for film fans this week.  The perils of being identical conjoined twins, the latter days of an elder man with spirit, the consequences of being cryogenically preserved, obsessive lovers, POV zombie outbreaks and finding spirits via sound all make up the topics within the films dissected via the following Encapsulated Movie Reviews.  Check out the critical skinny on Indivisible, Lucky, Realive, Thirst Street, I Am Alone and The Sound below!

INDIVISIBLE
(Cinema Made In Italy)

A fascinating and layered tale of two identically conjoined eighteen year old twins who begin to have reservations about their various directions in life – especially with the new possibility of being able to be surgically severed.  There are some stereotypical characters (the father who uses the pair to bring home the show business bacon is deadbeat dad 101!) and scenarios (the promise of love pulls the attached gals apart – coming of age anyone?!) but it’s the spirited and thoughtful work and connection between real life twins Angela and Marianna Fontana that separates Indivisible from being standard cinema.

LUCKY
(Magnolia Pictures)

In a role of an elder character with spirit and one of his final film performances, the late great Harry Dean Stanton is what makes the sometimes slow Lucky worth watching.  An examination of a humble man in the last days of his life, Stanton portrays the perfect amount of everyman joy and pathos and shows that even in small events wondrous things still arise.  (See the scene of a Stanton sung song during a party!)  Plus with a few scenes played opposite frequent collaborator David Lynch as a (what else!) quirky cohort, Lucky feels like a fitting tribute to a man who lived life on his own terms and who wouldn’t have it any other way.

REALIVE
(SYFY Films)

An interesting sci-fi film that starts with a fascinating premise – if due to disease you could be cryogenically preserved and re-born cured how would it affect you and the ones you love left behind? It’s a story that certainly provides the strong narrative backbone of Realive, right alongside the intense focused performance by lead man Tom Hughes.  The film does tend to get dragged down with subplots and overly dramatic bits that go on too long, but overall Realive is a flick that dares to ask interesting human questions in a world of technology.

THIRST STREET
(Samuel Goldwyn Films)

A creepy Single White Female style story with the eerie Lindsay Burge (already previously wildly weird in Karyn Kusama’s The Invitation!) playing a woman whose former lover commits suicide and then fixates on the first unsuspecting man who shows her affection.  Unsettling are the lengths that Burge’s unstable character is willing to go to get the attention of schlub Damien Bonnard, but add to that some voice-over narration by the mighty Angelica Huston (so out-of-place, but so disturbingly delicious!) and some strange eye infection stuff at the beginning and you’ve got a flick that for better or worse forces a frightening film reaction.

I AM ALONE
(Random Media)

I Am Alone mixes a reality TV angle with found footage style for a flick that for the most part doesn’t hold up.  The whole wrap around involving a single survivor locked in a room scanning the camera footage of his virus infected buddy feels forced and with sub-par acting that makes Carrot Top look like Olivier to boot.  But the hidden gem of this one is the fantastic turn by Gareth David-Lloyd as a bitten TV host who we get to witness going through a long and many days zombie transformation – great layered undead work sir.

THE SOUND
(Samuel Goldwyn Films)

Again another film with a great premise – a profession ghost debunker who uses sound to prove her naysaying theories – that gets bogged down in menacing minutia to seem scary.  Fascinating is the initial story with Rose McGowan playing a professional skeptic who takes on a case not be as easy as it seems, but the add to it some obvious twists, turns and even sinister staple Michael Eklund as a questionable detective (is there a part where this guy doesn’t play a creep?!) and you got a film that eventually turns the volume down on interesting.