![]() Is Laurel Graham playing Velma Duran, or did she fake her death as part of some grand scheme? And as we progress with the film, the various realities intertwine fluidly, the line between fact and fiction becoming non-existent. But as the movie-within-a-movie goes on, Haven becomes inexplicably drawn to Graham and shifts the focus from b-movie pulp thriller to moody, intense character study - with the beautiful Sossamon front and center. Haven casts his low-budget piece with your typical hey-it’s-that-guy actors, finding Tachen in actor Cary Stewart ( Cliff De Young, “ Suicide Kings“) and Duran in the dead-ringer Laurel Graham ( Shannyn Sossamon, “ A Knight’s Tale“). Mitch Haven ( Tygh Runyan, “ Snakes on a Plane“) is directing a film based on a bizarre, noir-ish money embezzlement/murder plot involving Cuban femme-fatale Velma Duran and sleazy politico Rafe Tachen. Right off the bat things get very tricky to follow, which makes it even rougher to explain, but here we go. As she navigates the crude undergrad-student-worthy menu, the camera zooms into her computer screen and the movie she’s watching ultimately engulfs the screen, becoming the new reality. ‘Wild Life’ Continues Filmmaking Duo’s Non-Fiction Winning Streakīeginning in one reality, activist blogger Nathalie Post ( Dominique Swain, “ Alpha Dog“) pops a DVD into her laptop, one holding a movie based on a small-town story she had wrote on. Which brings us to this unfortunate question: which camp does “ Road to Nowhere” by Monte Hellman (director of the great “ Two-Lane Blacktop,” absent from features since 1989) fall into? Depending on your affinity for David Lynch/Claire Denis-type narrative puzzles, it could go either way. ![]() ![]() Either way, these artistic resuscitations are often only ever seen as complete travesty or modern masterpiece, regardless of how detrimental those extremist labels truly are. Few are as successful critically as that, and though we all have our dream lists (this writer can’t be the only one hoping for a new Nagisa Oshima), some filmmakers can’t restart the fire they once had - often it feels like they’re trying too hard to either keep up with current stylistic trends or forcing out a passion that they no longer have. ![]() “ The Godfather” auteur Francis Ford Coppola is currently enjoying a second career in film, and though he isn’t making serious bank (“ Youth Without Youth” couldn’t even muster up $250,000 domestically), his latest output is some of his best work since the early 1980s. The reemergence of a well-respected filmmaker will always draw the eyes of cinephiles everywhere these once-master auteurs come out of hiding, hoping to recapture the energy and attention they once had. ![]()
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