Wednesday, May 3, 2006

Cinemarati Blog »
Junebug has an 86% on Rotten Tomatoes at the time of this writing, and a 77 on MetaCritic, which currently is one point higher than Me and You and two points below March of the Penguins and 2046. All Junebug comments welcome.
Lynn Lee -basically one long, slow stretch of silence punctuated with snatches of conversation and action.The family dynamics are conveyed with great subtlety, again mostly because of the acting and the fact that so many of the characters are either taciturn or absent.
Nick Davis -year’s best acting ensemble so far, a wonderful willingness (as Lynn notes) to let place, space, and silence tell stories, and a generous commitment to observing characters who rarely if ever act as boilerplate Hollywood typecasting would require. Absolutely its own rhythms and its own manner of paying attention to its people, which is why there are so many more insights here and so much more to appreciate from a formal standpoint than you usually find in this kind of quirky homecoming plot. nice.

MetaCritic >>
-Stanley Kauffmann, TheNewRepublic: The screenwriter Angus MacLachlan and the director Phil Morrison and an astonishingly perfect cast have quietly made a daring picture. This is the sort of film we say (or used to say) we don't often get in America, the film whose interest is not in suspense and climax but in character verity. All that Junebug is about is its people.
-Roger Ebert, ChgoSunTimes: humbles other films that claim to be about family secrets and eccentricities. understands.. Families and their problems go on and on.
-Laura Sinagra, VillageVoice: It's an exhilaratingly decentered tale, with the perspective shifting around so there's no character with whom we totally identify throughout. [~Madeleine at center ~] In every one of Junebug's relationships, negotiations made outside the scope of the frame have resulted in coded understandings. When behavior falls outside those routines—as when Madeleine reaches out to George's family members and ends up seeming flirtatious or condescending, or when George's mother eyes her new daughter-in-law with flashes of horror-film contempt—mundane actions can seem as strange..
-Kimberley Jones, TheAustinChronicle: The sum is something deeply profound about awkwardness ..
-David Edelstein, Slate: hugely entertaining, it's spectacularly acted.. a culture-clash quasi-comedy that could have been "QUIRKY" and "OFFBEAT," but is directed, by Phil Morrison, in the least self-consciously quirky manner imaginable. The movie has a haunted spaciousness. yes. but no to reiteration of word 'bug' and : Ashley 's so threatened no that she does one of those fascinating psychological flip-flops no: She develops no a huge sisterly crush on Madeleine. ("I love her!") -immediate, sincere. no to pretty much all the rest of the review also.

& check Salon -?

Imdb- Junebug (2005) >>
-williamwolfe : A very intelligent script, with direction that does it justice. Rather than spelling out exactly what we're supposed to be thinking and feeling at every moment, the filmmakers respect the audience's ability to infer meaning from the mood and tone, from the light in a frame or the ambient noise of a scene (or, for that matter, from the complete silence in which we occasionally are allowed to contemplate the house and small town where the story is set). As for the actors, they must have been thrilled to have the chance to play such complex, well-rounded characters, each of them at times being fine and even something like noble, at other times frustrating and perhaps even cruel.
All through this film, there are moments where we fear that its makers are going to settle for the cliché, but they never do. yes yes yes yes yes (my 'keeps being okay just okay but okay when could be dramatic stays quiet. decent' dramatic ~ cliche).
Very fine work from everyone involved.

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