IFFR 2007 - A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints
Movie: A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints (Dito Montiel, USA , 2006 - 98 ‘ ) 
Date: Feb 3, 2007
Rating: 
(gotta go see this one again..)
Plot: Yet another coming-of-age movie? Yes, but it still is fresh and interesting. Partly auto-biographical, writer/director Dito Montiel shows us his teenage youth, living in New York city in the eighties. Friendships, love interests, family ties, it’s all there.
Cast: Robert Downey Jr.’s gazillionth comeback proves again that the man can act. Great work by Chazz Palminteri as the dad and Shia LaBeouf as the young Dito. Scariest performance is by Channing Tatum as the troubled Antonio; now there’s an actor that’s hopefully gonna become more than just another beefcake actor.
Visuals: Gloomy atmosphere the whole film through, works perfectly.
Conclusion: A coupla things annoyed me, like the incredibly crowded dialogue in the kitchen scenes and the sometimes jarring editing that really wasn’t adding to the movie at all. What I liked about the movie? Still can’t put my finger on it. The sense of sadness and anger, the threats and promises, lost love and how that’s handled in the movie; all these things kept creeping in my head after I saw the film. Not a lot of movies can do that successfully, and this one does. In many ways, I know that I’ll be thinking about this movie these next months, something that can’t be said of most movies I saw at the festival (regardless of how much I enjoyed them).
Oh, and Rosario Dawson? Definitely more than just a hot chick..
February 9th, 2007 at 9:50 pm
[...] I enjoyed quite a lot of movies, saving the best and the worst ones for the last day. [...]
September 11th, 2008 at 11:18 am
Hahaha, guess what movie I saw earlier this week? Didn’t recall you reviewing it. Funny to read it now! Impressing movie.
September 11th, 2008 at 6:00 pm
Heh, gotta get that movie and watch it again, it’s been too long..