Another believable and often unpleasant-to-watch visit to the world of drug addicts, in the same wrenchingly rewarding vein as "Requiem for a Dream", debuting writer-director Rosemary Rodriguez's "Acts of Worship" premiered at Sundance.
It won several awards at the Santa Barbara film fest -- including one for Ana Reeder for best actress -- and made its local bow at the Egyptian on Hollywood Boulevard as part of the American Cinematheque's "Alternative Screen" series.
Set on New York's Lower East Side, "Acts" is Rodriguez's autobiographical drama of an attractive young woman (Reeder) from greener pastures who has given herself over to the false paradise of crack cocaine and heroin, and the pathetic lifestyle that results. Not as stylized and complex as "Requiem", the tersely naturalistic and overall adeptly realized "Acts" is another worthy indie that may go homeless, so to speak, but it has a life on the festival circuit and certainly deserves attention.
With long blond hair and street smarts, the lead has an evil boyfriend and many cohorts in the daily process of scoring and getting high. There's a strung-out couple who deal drugs and let her take their young boy for walks. There are sidewalk vendors who provide her with cash or stash for stolen items. Owing money to crazed crackheads and selling her body for drugs at one point, she is dishonest, volatile and uses everyone -- and expects the same in return.
Her "God" is heroin, and another character, a black woman and reformed addict (Michael Hyatt) who tries to help the lead after an overdose, says knowingly that "crack is like falling in love all over again." For a few scenes, these two support each other in a sober lifestyle, but the struggle to kick the habit is a battle many lose, and the climax is powerfully tragic.
Reeder's impressive performance is utterly convincing, and the supporting cast, led by Hyatt's subtle approach, is equal to the grim milieu. From the sparing use of music to heighten the documentary-like aspects of some sequences to Luke Geissbuhler's harsh but cliche-free cinematography, "Acts" is solid filmmaking.
ACTS OF WORSHIP
Manifesto Films
Screenwriter-director: Rosemary Rodriguez
Producers: Nadia Leonelli, Fredrik Sundwall, Rosemary Rodriguez
Director of photography: Luke Geissbuhler
Production designer: Johnny Hardesty
Editor: Elizabeth Downer
Costume designer: Jan Bohan
Music: Jim Coleman
Casting: Susan Shopmaker
Color/stereo
Cast:
Alix: Ana Reeder
Digna: Michael Hyatt
Mark: Christopher Kadish
Anthony: Nestor Rodriguez
Dan: Brian Burchill
Running time -- 94 minutes
No MPAA rating...
It won several awards at the Santa Barbara film fest -- including one for Ana Reeder for best actress -- and made its local bow at the Egyptian on Hollywood Boulevard as part of the American Cinematheque's "Alternative Screen" series.
Set on New York's Lower East Side, "Acts" is Rodriguez's autobiographical drama of an attractive young woman (Reeder) from greener pastures who has given herself over to the false paradise of crack cocaine and heroin, and the pathetic lifestyle that results. Not as stylized and complex as "Requiem", the tersely naturalistic and overall adeptly realized "Acts" is another worthy indie that may go homeless, so to speak, but it has a life on the festival circuit and certainly deserves attention.
With long blond hair and street smarts, the lead has an evil boyfriend and many cohorts in the daily process of scoring and getting high. There's a strung-out couple who deal drugs and let her take their young boy for walks. There are sidewalk vendors who provide her with cash or stash for stolen items. Owing money to crazed crackheads and selling her body for drugs at one point, she is dishonest, volatile and uses everyone -- and expects the same in return.
Her "God" is heroin, and another character, a black woman and reformed addict (Michael Hyatt) who tries to help the lead after an overdose, says knowingly that "crack is like falling in love all over again." For a few scenes, these two support each other in a sober lifestyle, but the struggle to kick the habit is a battle many lose, and the climax is powerfully tragic.
Reeder's impressive performance is utterly convincing, and the supporting cast, led by Hyatt's subtle approach, is equal to the grim milieu. From the sparing use of music to heighten the documentary-like aspects of some sequences to Luke Geissbuhler's harsh but cliche-free cinematography, "Acts" is solid filmmaking.
ACTS OF WORSHIP
Manifesto Films
Screenwriter-director: Rosemary Rodriguez
Producers: Nadia Leonelli, Fredrik Sundwall, Rosemary Rodriguez
Director of photography: Luke Geissbuhler
Production designer: Johnny Hardesty
Editor: Elizabeth Downer
Costume designer: Jan Bohan
Music: Jim Coleman
Casting: Susan Shopmaker
Color/stereo
Cast:
Alix: Ana Reeder
Digna: Michael Hyatt
Mark: Christopher Kadish
Anthony: Nestor Rodriguez
Dan: Brian Burchill
Running time -- 94 minutes
No MPAA rating...
- 7/19/2001
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
A fractured, comic folly about life in roadside-attraction America, Morgan J. Freeman's "Desert Blue" is a rollicking, off-road venture that will tickle the sensibilities of independent film fans. Wonderfully loony and touching, it played to wildly enthusiastic acclaim at the Toronto International Film Festival.
Set smack-dab on the fringes of an eastern California town passed up by the interstate, it's a hilarious look at people who live outside the lines of power. In this case, Baxter (population 89) is, essentially, a ghost town gone belly up after the mines closed. Its dubious claim to fame is the world's tallest Ice Cream cone, erected to generate tourist business. Less well-known is that it's also home to Baxter Beach, the world's creakiest unfinished ocean park and the inspired dream of one of the town's late crackpots who figured if you have sand, it's ridiculous not to have a beach.
Into town wanders a professor of popular culture (John Heard) who has lugged his ungrateful, TV actress daughter (Kate Hudson) on a tour of U.S. back roads. The good, goofy professor chronicles American oddities, peculiarities of small-town boosterism -- burgs that build things such as huge thermometers and palaces made of corn to attract attention and economic interest.
Structurally, "Desert Blue" ambles out like an old-time western as the professor and his daughter encounter the coots and crazies who eke out a living in the tumble-down town. As soon as they get there, however, a trucker toting ingredients for a newfangled soda is killed in a highway accident. The authorities surmise that he was somehow poisoned by the contents of his load.
No sooner than you can say "bring in the outsiders," the FBI and EPA arrive in storm-trooper force and quarantine the town. This causes great consternation among the townsfolk: It will upset their daily routines of drinking, off-road biking and mucking about.
While the plot is not particularly remarkable, the storytelling and capture of locale and mind-set is cunningly brainy. Writer-director Freeman (who did "Hurricane Streets", which won the 1997 Sundance Audience Award) has wired together a most-peculiar pastiche of folks living on society's fringes.
The story line is wacky yet endearingly affecting, in part because of strong, offbeat performances from a cast led by Christina Ricci, who is hilarious as an angry young girl who gets her kicks from blowing things up. She's a virtual one-woman demolition derby. And Casey Affleck is a kick as a rowdy whose only dream is to defend his all-terrain vehicle racing championship.
Among more-normal characters, relatively speaking, Brendan Sexton III is sympathetic as a young man who bears a tremendous personal cross, while Hudson's tawny performance as a TV starlet is altogether appealing.
But its shady squint on life gives "Desert Blue" its sheen. Freeman has wired together a terrific slant on Americana; it's neither condescending nor judgmental. In fact, it's oddly inspiring.
DESERT BLUE
Ignite Entertainment
A film by Morgan J. Freeman
Producers: Andrea Sperling, Nadia Leonelli,
Michael Burns
Screenwriter-director: Morgan J. Freeman
Executive producers: Leanna Creel,
Marc Butan, Kip Hagopian
Co-producers: Gill Holland, A. Carter Pottash
Director of photography: Enrique Chediak
Editor: Sabine Hoffman
Production designer: David Doernberg
Music: Vytas Nagisetty
Music supervisor: Tracy McNight
Sound designers: Margaret Crimmins,
Paul D. Hsu
Costume designer: Trish Summerville
Casting: Susan Shopmaker
Color/stereo
Cast:
Blue: Brendan Sexton III
Skye: Kate Hudson
Ely: Christina Ricci
Pete: Casey Affleck
Sandy: Sarah Gilbert
Lance: John Heard
Caroline: Lucina Jenney
Running time -- 92 minutes
No MPAA rating...
Set smack-dab on the fringes of an eastern California town passed up by the interstate, it's a hilarious look at people who live outside the lines of power. In this case, Baxter (population 89) is, essentially, a ghost town gone belly up after the mines closed. Its dubious claim to fame is the world's tallest Ice Cream cone, erected to generate tourist business. Less well-known is that it's also home to Baxter Beach, the world's creakiest unfinished ocean park and the inspired dream of one of the town's late crackpots who figured if you have sand, it's ridiculous not to have a beach.
Into town wanders a professor of popular culture (John Heard) who has lugged his ungrateful, TV actress daughter (Kate Hudson) on a tour of U.S. back roads. The good, goofy professor chronicles American oddities, peculiarities of small-town boosterism -- burgs that build things such as huge thermometers and palaces made of corn to attract attention and economic interest.
Structurally, "Desert Blue" ambles out like an old-time western as the professor and his daughter encounter the coots and crazies who eke out a living in the tumble-down town. As soon as they get there, however, a trucker toting ingredients for a newfangled soda is killed in a highway accident. The authorities surmise that he was somehow poisoned by the contents of his load.
No sooner than you can say "bring in the outsiders," the FBI and EPA arrive in storm-trooper force and quarantine the town. This causes great consternation among the townsfolk: It will upset their daily routines of drinking, off-road biking and mucking about.
While the plot is not particularly remarkable, the storytelling and capture of locale and mind-set is cunningly brainy. Writer-director Freeman (who did "Hurricane Streets", which won the 1997 Sundance Audience Award) has wired together a most-peculiar pastiche of folks living on society's fringes.
The story line is wacky yet endearingly affecting, in part because of strong, offbeat performances from a cast led by Christina Ricci, who is hilarious as an angry young girl who gets her kicks from blowing things up. She's a virtual one-woman demolition derby. And Casey Affleck is a kick as a rowdy whose only dream is to defend his all-terrain vehicle racing championship.
Among more-normal characters, relatively speaking, Brendan Sexton III is sympathetic as a young man who bears a tremendous personal cross, while Hudson's tawny performance as a TV starlet is altogether appealing.
But its shady squint on life gives "Desert Blue" its sheen. Freeman has wired together a terrific slant on Americana; it's neither condescending nor judgmental. In fact, it's oddly inspiring.
DESERT BLUE
Ignite Entertainment
A film by Morgan J. Freeman
Producers: Andrea Sperling, Nadia Leonelli,
Michael Burns
Screenwriter-director: Morgan J. Freeman
Executive producers: Leanna Creel,
Marc Butan, Kip Hagopian
Co-producers: Gill Holland, A. Carter Pottash
Director of photography: Enrique Chediak
Editor: Sabine Hoffman
Production designer: David Doernberg
Music: Vytas Nagisetty
Music supervisor: Tracy McNight
Sound designers: Margaret Crimmins,
Paul D. Hsu
Costume designer: Trish Summerville
Casting: Susan Shopmaker
Color/stereo
Cast:
Blue: Brendan Sexton III
Skye: Kate Hudson
Ely: Christina Ricci
Pete: Casey Affleck
Sandy: Sarah Gilbert
Lance: John Heard
Caroline: Lucina Jenney
Running time -- 92 minutes
No MPAA rating...
- 9/16/1998
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
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