Ahoy, squirts! Quint here with another batch of reviews from Sundance. Our main man on the ground at the fest is Grib who has yet another review for us, this one for a drama starring John Heard and Tom Guiry called STEEL CITY. Below Mr. Grib, we have a very short, short look at a short, short movie (around an hour long) called JEWBOY! Enjoy!
Hey, Harry,
Grib here again from Sundance. I caught the early morning screening of "Steel City," Brian Jun's gritty account of an emotionally distant family in a heavily working class town in Southern Illinois. In tone, pace, look and blue collar feel, this film reminded me of a little-watched Edward Burns film called "No Looking Back," but "Steel City" is a much better film. Its grittiness at time feels a bit mannered; the dead-end bitterness of the characters made me feel at times like I was going to have to punch a time clock to get out of the theater. But this is likely due to the earnest desire of a young filmmaker to tell his story, and it is a good story indeed.
PJ Lee ("The Sandlot"'s Tom Guiry) is a downtrodden young man who, in the film's opening scene, a flashback, is being questioned by the police about a car accident (the mangled aftermath of which we see in black and white glimpses intercut with the conversation between PJ and the cops) in which his father, Carl (John Heard) was driving and a woman was killed. PJ is very nervous, as if he might somehow be guilty, but the policeman eventually tells him that someone will take him home.
Gradually, we learn that Carl is going to stand trial for causing the accident, and that he could get seven years in jail. In another flashback, we see Carl leaving his family when PJ and his brother Ben (Clayne Crawford) were boys, leaving PJ's mom (Laurie Metcalf) to raise them by herself. She is now remarried to a policeman (NYPD Blue's James McDaniel), and after dinner at their house, PJ gently probes his stepfather for details about the requirements for entry to the police academy.
At the start of the movie, PJ is working as a busboy at a restaurant alongside his sort-of girlfriend (the luminous America Ferrara of "Real Women Have Curves"), but PJ is a very angry young man, and it is not long before he is fired after a spat with his boss. He seems angry about everything, including his brother's infidelity, which causes Ben's wife to take their toddler daughter and move out. Ben, who works in the local steel factory, has issues of his own; he, like PJ, is struggling to make sense of his relationship (or lack thereof) with his father. Carl tries to call him collect from prison, but Ben refuses the calls.
PJ accepts such calls, and even visits Carl each week in prison as he awaits trial. At the Q&A after the film, Jun explained that these visits were the foundation of the screenplay; he branched out from these conversations to create the rest of the story. And they are the core of the film. It is during one of them that we learn a secret (which I won't reveal) that changes the way we view these people and their situation.
The performances are all strong, especially veteran actor Raymond J. Berry as Carl's brother Vic, who agrees to Carl's request to help PJ get another job; PJ moves in with Vic after he is evicted from the family house, but things go less than smoothly.
The interracial relationships between PJ and his girlfriend and between McDaniel and Metcalf are explored in some depth, and this is indicative of Jun's overall approach: this film tackles big issues in a quiet way, but does not shy away from them at all.
The soundtrack, by folk/rock musician Mark Geary, elicited a lot of positive comments from the audience after the film. It is good music, but I found its relentlessly melancholy quality to be unnecessary in a film that does just fine making its points without help from external sources.
The only other problem I had with the film was a tendency toward a bit too much exposition. There's a lot of "remember the Christmas when..." type dialogue and a few too many speeches that fill in backstory. In a film that lets the audience figure a lot of slightly ambiguous things out for itself, this was unnecessary. But this is a minor quibble; it was the strength of the major plot points that made these tangential detours noticeable at all.
"Steel City" will sell, if not at the Festival then soon thereafter, and you will have a chance to see this excellent film.
And here's "Jewbalie" and his kosher look at JEWBOY!!!
Hey Aint It Coolers,
I just saw Jewboy, after someone saw my yarmulka and figured I'd like a ticket. The hour long film written and directed by australian director Tony Krawitz was show at the Prospector theatre, so it was a small, yet intimate crowd. Being a jew I'm skeptical, but I walked away from this movie very happy. The film follows Yuri, a hasidic jew that comes home from a year at a yeshivah for his father, the town rabbi's funeral. As the shiva (I guesse the Jewish equivelant of a wake) goes on Yuri begins to question his faith in orthodox judaism as well as his faith in god.
I don't want to give away what happens but the story is beautiful. When Yuri becomes a taxi driver, and as an orthodox jew, it is inevitable that hilarity ensues. This film shines as it shows a young man coming to terms with what he grew up with, including life, love, family, and faith.
-The Jewbalie
