After the Triumph of Your Birth

by Tony Dayoub

First films. You can usually lump them in one of two categories: watered-down retreads of a pick-your-genre kind of movie or amateurish stabs at revealing something personal (but not particularly interesting) about its creator. Jim Akin's first film is neither. After the Triumph of Your Birth is a beautifully photographed, ambitious foray into the American psyche, replete with resonant musical interludes featuring Akin, his wife Maria Mckee (formerly of Lone Justice) and star Tom Dunne. Fusing Paul Thomas Anderson's sense of the absurd with David Lynch's skewed perspective on Americana, Akin turns a hairy eyeball toward the disconnectedness of the archetypal loner encouraged by our popular culture.

Killer Joe

by Tony Dayoub

Sometimes, like a crooner scat singing his way around a time-worn standard, the sharpness of a filmmaker's instrument is best revealed in nothing more impressive than an old, reliable genre piece. This has certainly been the case with William Friedkin (The French Connection, The Exorcist). After a few misfires in the '90s, one of the most zealous of the enfants terrible to make their name in the New Hollywood of the '70s proves he's still capable of hitting some shocking high notes with his latest, Killer Joe. The second of two fruitful collaborations with playwright Tracy Letts (August: Osage County), Killer Joe is based on his first play. It's a seamy look at a greedy trailer park clan through the skewed but precise eyes of the film's titular corrupt police detective.

The 50th New York Film Festival

by Tony Dayoub

Rachel McAdams and Noomi Rapace in Passion

I'm very excited to have been accredited to cover the New York Film Festival (NYFF) again, especially this year, in its 50th Anniversary. I can only go for a week since funds are limited (especially with the new business we opened earlier this year). I'm still finalizing travel plans, but I've zeroed in on a week with a more eclectic selection of films than I usually go for. This because I could not pass up a chance to see the U.S. premiere of Brian De Palma's latest, Passion, a remake of Alain Corneau's Love Crime. Other notable films I should have the opportunity to review include Barry Levinson's The Bay, Christian Mungiu's Beyond the Hills, Noah Baumbach's Frances Ha, and more. So keep checking in for festival dispatches, early reviews, and more on this year's crop of NYFF films and awards contenders.

Transfiguration

Whistleblower films on DVD and Blu-ray

by Tony Dayoub

What is our attraction to movies about whistleblowers? Is it our admiration of one loner speaking truth to power when confronted with an injustice that person may have been a party to? Or is it our own distrust of the establishment, an inborn characteristic in the more rebellious of us, conscious of the way our own place in the world came to be when our forefathers overthrew the armed forces of their mother country? It's arguable whether the humdrum phone hacking scandal — which started with the News of the World and has embroiled everyone from its parent company's CEO, Rupert Murdoch, to talk show host Piers Morgan — registered much with the average American until the mysterious death of 47-year-old Sean Hoare. A former reporter for the British tabloid, Hoare was one of the first to expose the newspaper's questionable methods of acquiring information. Speculation immediately drifted towards some conspiracy angle despite Hoare's notorious abuse of drugs and alcohol.