Why have burning plain when you can have burning fancy?
By PETER KEOUGH | April 15, 2009
VIDEO: The trailer for The Burning Plain
Why have burning plain when you can have burning fancy? As in his screenplays for estranged colleague Alejandro González Iñárritu (Babel, 21 Grams), Guillermo Arriaga has in his directorial debut addled a contrived and trite story with a contrived narrative structure, the theory being that viewers will be so impressed they figured it out that they'll believe it's a work of art. A teenage girl gets tough when she discovers that her mother (Kim Basinger) is having an affair with a Hispanic neighbor. Years later, she (Charlize Theron) must come to grips with the past and her feelings for the adulterous man's son. Arriaga starts the story in the middle and moves sideways, so it may take you a while to realize it's bogus. The only art here is the opening image, striking and simple, unlike what follows.
SOMERVILLE THEATRE: APRIL 25 at 5 PM
Related:
Review: Automorphosis, Review: Trust Us This Is All Made Up, Review: Nollywood Babylon, More 
- Review: Automorphosis
What kind of person would dedicate his or her life to creating "Art Cars," vehicles that have been transformed into mobile art installations by their proud owners?
- Review: Trust Us This Is All Made Up
“Trust us, this is all made up,” begins TJ Jagodowski, addressing a capacity crowd at New York’s Barrow Street Theater.
- Review: Nollywood Babylon
You may have never heard of Living in Bondage , Desperate Billionaire , or any other works coming out of Nigeria's exploding homegrown film scene, but Nollywood has become the world's third-largest movie industry.
- Review: Of All the Things
Dennis Lambert may be the biggest hit machine you never heard of.
- Review: Still Walking
By now, it's a bit of a cliché to compare the work of Hirokazu Koreeda to the masterful films of Yasujiro Ozu — something of which I've certainly been guilty.
- Review: Trinidad
In contrast to its eloquent subjects, director P.J. Raval's documentary about Trinidad, Colorado — the "Sex Change Capital of the World" — seems uncertain about its aspirations.
- Review: Shooting Beauty
Sometimes just being a gifted artist doesn't mean you're the right person to tell the story.
- Review: That Evening Sun
Scott Teems's faux Faulkner melodrama scores for cinematography but falls short in originality and character development.
- Review: Bronson
From Danish director Nicolas Winding Refn comes a fantasy bio-pic of Britain's notorious Charlie Bronson, a larger-than-life character who, after swiping his identity from Charles Bronson transformed from bare-knuckle prizefighter into "Britain's most violent prisoner."
- Review: Big Fan
"He's another Martin Scorsese!" crows mom when her son screens an awful ad for his ambulance-chasing law firm in this unimpressive debut from Robert Siegel.
- Review: Children of Invention
Chun's is an eloquent and restrained study of the fine line between respectability and desperation.
- Less
Topics:
Reviews
, Celebrity News, Entertainment, Movie Stars, More
, Celebrity News, Entertainment, Movie Stars, Charlize Theron, Charlize Theron, Kim Basinger, Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu, Independent film Festival of Boston, somerville Theatre, Guillermo Arriaga, Less
