Personal Velocity (Rebecca Miller, 2002)

Adapted by the director/screenwriter from her book of the same title, this film has somehow garnered a reputation for being a rough-hewn but potent set of character studies, driven by powerful turns from Kyra Sedgwick, Fairuza Balk, and Parker Posey as the leads in three interconnected stories. Unfortunately, that description applies to this film in the same way that, say "fine-boned" applies to Jonathan Winters.

Because of the strength of many positive reviews, we went to see this last weekend. And, given the level of good press this wretched film has gotten, I am obliged to supply a corrective of sorts. Here then: Things begin badly in this film as we discover that the writer-director, so in love with her own uninspired prose that she has a voice-over narrator supply all the detail she doesn't know how to dramatize, has apparently decided to emulate Dogme filmmakers in every department except for the possession of a visual sensibility. Personal Velocity supplies the migraines delivered by a very poorly shot student film, and as such is a good example of how technique doesn't defeat a sense of fresh vision -- indeed, it's likely a prerequisite.

The script is of a piece, or maybe worse -- not merely a stream of clichés, but a torrent which threatens to drown the audience. The "keenly observed" characters, the subject of much of the film's praise, have as much to them as the women in a novelization of a Sex In the City script might. Of the three stories, the only one that doesn't elicit constant groans of disbelief is the one set amongst careerist, amoral publishing professionals (draw your own conclusions). That vignette isn't any good either, but at least one feels the director knows the territory she plods through. Proof that a small budget, a belief in one's own work, and some committed performances by talented actresses can, with luck, turn out a piece of shit as bad as anything major studios are capable of excreting.

Don Juan de Marco (Jeremy Leven, 1998)

Why did we rent this? Wait 'til you hear this: an instructor of T.'s suggested that it provided an illuminating perspective on the complex process of psychotherapy.

Of course, as everyone else probably already knows, the only thing illuminated by Don Juan De Marco is the extent to which viewers like ourselves are gullible fools who would probably have starved in an era of really serious survival-of-the-fittest-style economic competition. However, if you don't already know how bad this film is: remember that annoying Bryan Adams song "Have You Ever Really Loved A Woman?" Well, versions of that skull-scraper melody play, in a sort of Spanish-guitar mode, throughout this tale of Johnny Depp's pschotic devotion to a sort of soft-core version of the Don Juan myth, as played out in fantasy-flashback mode. That should give you some idea.

Basically, Depp convinces his psychiatrist, played amazingly well by a large trained sea lion who is billed as "Marlon Brando," to accept his delusion that he has slept with thousands of women, which for some unexplained reason makes Brando feel better about the fact that he is old.

Depp is actually a little charismatic in the movie, which is good because the dippy faux-Castilian accent he sports is only slightly funnier than the Burt Ward mask he wears through much of the picture. The glacial pace allows time for plenty of rumination about how a film which includes one very good-looking dude getting it on with a considerable number of extremely good-looking women could wind up about as sexy as an instructional video about choosing and installing vinyl siding.

The Goddamned Upstairs Neighbors (244 6th Ave Collective, 2002 -- plays in select locations only)

This latest installment of an irregularly-but-ongoing series hits many of lowlights of former efforts: the soundtrack, swerving from kicking beats to long stretches of party chatter; the length of the feature, which runs from early in the evening for over six hours -- at 1:00 AM this baby is far from wrapping up; and, most importantly, the failure of the principal performers to break out of the roles they've established so thoroughly in the countless previous versions. Even the plot is stale -- a casual Friday night dinner hosted by a brother and sister for their friends turns into a marathon affair which keeps the downstairs tenants awake? Haven't we all been here before?

A late appearance by a pair of sympathetic landlords offers some hope that this epic will wrap up in a reasonable amount of time, but just when you think there's no more that this thin material can be stretched, some furniture is loudly rearranged, and it's clear that the directing team don't feel they've exhausted their subject yet. While the main performers enjoy themselves exuberantly in the making of this feature, somehow their sincerity, their animal lust for life, and their shrieks of bibulous laughter don't translate into a rewarding experience for the audience. I dunno. Maybe my taste just isn't refined enough to really appreciate this group's work.