Change Your Image
petersf21
Reviews
Rid of Me (2011)
Hollywood Reporter "offers little joy"
A grungy tale of post-divorce rebirth in which the cure looks about as unpleasant as the illness, James Westby's Rid of Me offers an acting showcase for "desperate" co-producer Katie O'Grady but sets her character in a thinly painted world with straw-man antagonists. Commercial potential is dim for its single-screen NYC booking. The pic's meant as a black comedy, but you'd have to read the press notes to know that. Most viewers will read it as a morose character study whose aspirations are closer to psychological horror than comedy, even if gestures in that direction -- portentous closeups, ominous musical cues -- aren't matched by other production values, like its flatly undramatic lighting and set design. O'Grady plays Meris, a devoted wife whose husband Mitch must return to his old hometown when a business venture fails. There he reconnects with a tight-knit circle of fratboyish bros and their Stepford wives, none of whom show any empathy for Maris's shyness -- and why would they, with Westby's scenario such a cartoon illustration of social anxiety disorder, littered with unbelievable gaffes? Maris travels through a goth-y heart of darkness after her divorce, acting out in some revolting ways best not described here. Though set in the Pacific Northwest and sporting a musician in the cast (Everclear's Art Alexakis shouldn't quit his day job), Rid of Me's take on riot-grrrl punk isn't nearly potent enough to justify the title's appropriation of PJ Harvey's landmark record: Neither its depiction of the world of squares nor its embrace of rule-flouting self-affirmation rings true, so the inevitable happy ending offers little joy.
Wake Before I Die (2011)
A waste of time and money
We saw this at the Bagdad Theater along with the cast and crew and friends of the directors. Obviously all the huge high marks are coming from family members and die hard participants. If this had been their first movie I might be more generous in my opinion, but the awful truth is they've made a lot of movies and don't seem to get one bit better doing it. Maybe it's time for them to bring in some professionals or enroll in a good film school. Where they get the money for all this stupidity is their business, but in reality it's really no different than a lot of the awful big budget movies coming from Hollywood that get made just because they can and have the money to do it. The same effect here, just on a smaller scale and in Portland, which has a pretty smart film audience worth listening to.