Andrew Schenker

Laredoans Speak: Voices of a South Texas Border City Review

Andrew Schenker
Good intentions don't always translate into good cinema, and in Victor A. Martinez and Ryan Schafer's documentary, Laredoans Speak: Voices of a South Texas Border City, the need to counter the rising chorus of anti-immigration voices leads to a response no more nuanced or insightful than that which the film......
law logo2x b

The Double Review

Andrew Schenker
The Double, Michael Brandt's post-Cold War spy film, is grade-B hokum, but it's not without its occasional generic thrills. Apparently more adept at staging individual set-pieces than he is at building tension, creating believable characters or stringing together a coherent narrative, Brandt places his best sequence, a successful jailbreak turned......

All She Can Review

Andrew Schenker
In the dusty small-town Texas of Amy Wendel's All She Can - the centerpiece movie of the weeklong Latino-themed Maya Indie Film series - the options are predictably bleak for high school grads: Join the army, work on an oil rig or enroll at a local community college. And for......
Jonas Geirnaert's Flatlife

Nine Nation Animation Review

Andrew Schenker
If nothing else, Nine Nation Animation proves that there's a lot more to the animator's art than either the cutting-edge ultrarealism of Pixar or the flat functionality of sitcoms like The Simpsons. The nonet of brief films on display in the latest anthology from the World According to Shorts offers......

American: The Bill Hicks Story

Andrew Schenker
AMERICAN: THE BILL HICKS STORY When charged with making a documentary about a subject whose work is far more interesting than his life, how does a filmmaker proceed? If you’re Matt Harlock and Paul Thomas, directors of American: The Bill Hicks Story, a portrait of the acerbic standup comic who......

The Over the Hill Band

Andrew Schenker
THE OVER THE HILL BAND Music uniting the generations is the hoary premise behind Geoffrey Enthoven's The Over the Hill Band, in which recently widowed Claire (Marilou Mermans) reconnects with her estranged middle-aged son, Sid (Jan van Looveren), via the formation of a most unlikely performing group. The only problem......

Just Go With It

Andrew Schenker
JUST GO WITH IT Just Go With It, Adam Sandler’s latest turn as a redeemable cad, casts the Grown Ups star as Danny Maccabee, a Beverly Hills plastic surgeon ready to settle down after meeting ’N Sync–loving 23-year-old hottie Palmer (Brooklyn Decker). That is, until she stumbles upon the fake......

Twelve Thirty

Andrew Schenker
TWELVE THIRTY In Twelve Thirty, getting fucked by a bright-eyed college kid proves a bonding experience for one Iowa family. In the aftermath of three wildly different sexual encounters with 20-something Jeff (Jonathan Groff), spunky Mel (Portia Reiners); her morose sister, Maura (Mamie Gummer); and the pair's mom, Vivien (Karen......
A Mother's Courage

Movie Review: A Mother's Courage

Andrew Schenker
A MOTHER'S COURAGE If Rupert Isaacson can not only pen a bestseller about his quest to curb his son's autism (the dubious vanity project The Horse Boy) but also turn his experiences into a film, then, sure, Margret Dagmar Ericsdottir, an Icelandic mother of an autistic child, can get a......