Results tagged “John Sayles”

Purchases benefit
this site.

John Sayles’s Limbo begins in a place that for many people would be the middle of nowhere — Port Henry, Alaska — and ends as literally as possible in the middle of nowhere, the better to live up to its themes. If you have seen Sayles’s other movies, you’ll probably walk into this one thinking it’s another of his smart meditations on the politics of a local community, like Lone Star or Sunshine State. It does indeed give off that vibe at first, but after a while the movie’s real intentions step forward. The place is just a backdrop, and the real drama is initially invisible.

Limbo gives us three people — Joe (David Straithairn), a handyman and ex-fisherman; Donna (Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio), a nowhere nightclub singer; and Donna’s daughter Noelle (Vanessa Martinez). The three of them cross paths at a locally-catered wedding, and almost without realizing it Joe gives Mary a ride home. She’s in the process of breaking up with yet another of the men she has had the bad taste to shack up with, something which her daughter has become disgusted enough with to take out on herself when no one’s looking. Joe and Donna like each other, and for a while the movie seems to be about the two of them moving closer together while the rest of the folks in the township (a good many of whom have just been laid off from the local canning factory) grouse about them into their beer.

Purchases benefit
this site.

The Brother from Another Planet had me just from its pedigree alone: it’s a modest independent film that does more with what little it has than projects with a thousand times the budget. It was the fourth film by indie-movie maven John Sayles, and it remains among his very best simply because it takes one basic idea and sees it through without stumbling. It also works because it spans many different tones quite effortlessly — it’s broadly funny, touching, and thoughtful, sometimes all of those things at the same time. Lastly, it’s a New York movie — or, specifically, a Harlem movie — and it understands New York from the sidewalk on up.

Brother stars Joe Morton, an actor you have almost certainly seen many times before (he was the hot-shot computer scientist in Terminator 2, for instance), but he never played a role remotely like this before or since. He plays an alien from outer space, an escaped slave, who crash-lands on Earth just off of Ellis Island. He doesn’t seem all that different from a human being, except for the three toes on his feet, but he can heal with a touch and fix (or sabotage) machinery the same way. Morton plays the whole role with his eyes, face and body, since the being never speaks once. It is a great performance, because it forces us to actually look at the man, to take in his whole performance, instead of simply listen to him.