We're in a bit of a lull as far as new DVDs are concerned, as Hollywood braces itself for the big 2008 summer movie season, soon to be followed by the 2008 fall pirated movie season, when good copies of summer blockbusters start popping up on DVD stands and stores in Shanghai. We've already burnt through that yearly January-February Oscar fare, and now what's left is the dregs of the stuff that we've seen around but have ignored over the past few months because it looked kinda crappy. Of course, now we're buying the kinda crappy stuff because there's nothing else. What else is there to do? Go outside? Pah.






Paranoid Park (2007), directed by creepy-yet-cool Gus Van Sant, offers a dramatic glimpse at the life of a teenage skateboarder and otherwise normal youth driven to the brink by a bout of paranoia. Unfortunately for Alex (Gabe Nevins), some just-being-a-kid tomfoolery results in the gruesome death of a security guard. Alex decides not to confess and thus ends up living in mental solitude (and anguish) with image of a man sliced in twain by an oncoming vehicle. Van Sant, whose erstwhile successes include Last Days (2005), a speechless film based on the final hours of deity Kurt Cobain, and Good Will Hunting (1997), a speech-heavy film featuring Robin Williams' only successful outing in the last four decades, is quick to show us that Alex's stress is compounded by his parent's recent divorce as well as an infuriatingly aggressive (albeit turbo-hot) girlfriend's incessant demands for sex. Are we allowed to judge Alex for his silence? Or is the life of lonely paranoia punishment enough? Grade: B+.

Marla Olmstead is a renowned abstract oil painter from upstate New York whose works sell for five figures. BOR-RING! Actually, it's not, because Marla sold her first work at the age of four. My Kid Could Paint That (2007) traces the rise of this creative prodigy and the 60 minutes piece that debunked the her as a fraud, giving all the credit to amateur-painter Mark Olmstead... Marla's daddy. Director Amir Bar-Lev develops an almost maniacal obsession with displaying his awareness that no documentary is perfectly unbiased. Torn by his responsibility as a documentarist to show the truth and feeling damn bad about invading the Olmstead's privacy during this emotional time, Bar-Lev manages to bring family members to tears and leave you with the feeling that he doubts the painting's authenticity. Grade: B.

Can't find Carolina Moon (2007) on imdb.com? That's because this movie premiered on Lifetime. Lifetime! Gah! Despite being quite attractive (think echoes of Angelina) Clare Forlani hasn't done much of note since Mallrats (1995), and her supposed break-out role staring opposite Brad Pitt and Anthony Hopkins in Meet Joe Black (1998) and it's unlikely that Carolina Moon will bring her any closer to the red carpets. After three decades of running from her painful psychic visions, Tory (Forlani) figures she might as well return to the house where her alcoholic father beat her to a bloody pulp, in the town -- Progress, Carolina -- where her childhood friend was slaughtered. Back in the Southern fold, a fragile Tory must navigate between setting up a boutique jewelry store, nurturing a seedling romance with childhood friend Cade (Oliver Hudson), and dealing with her visions, which become increasingly powerful sending her into (what appear to be) epileptic seizures. Based on the novel by Nora Roberts. The acting is unbearable. If it weren't for Oliver Hudson's soul-piercing gaze the movie would be completely unwatchable. Grade D-.

***

Lead image is Gabe Nevins in Paranoid Park.

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