Cyrus Hernstadt Movies
- 2011
- R
- Add Margaret to Queue
Kenneth Lonergan's Margaret stars Anna Paquin stars as Lisa, an emotionally immature, overly-articulate 17-year-old Manhattanite with an emotionally carnivorous actress for a mother and a distant businessman father who lives on the West Coast with his new, younger wife. One day, while trolling the upper west side for a cowboy hat, she spots a bus driver (Mark Ruffalo) sporting the perfect ten-gallon headwear. She tries to get his attention, and, while distracted, he causes a fatal accident.
After the bus driver is found to be faultless, due in part to Lisa's initial statement to the police, she seeks out the victim's best friend (Jeannie Berlin) and together they find a lawyer willing to bring a case against the bus company as well as the driver. Meanwhile, she's still dealing with all the regular stress in her life including a nice guy with a crush on her, a jerk who she calls when she's ready to lose her virginity, her mother picking fights with her so that she can get emotionally worked up enough to be marvelous on stage, hating her father's new wife, and verbally destroying any classmate who express the slightest bit of empathy for Muslims (Lisa is still full of righteous anger 5 years after 9/11).
Margaret was the subject of much turmoil during a lengthy post-production period in which the director attempted to get a longer cut of the film released to theaters. ~ Perry Seibert, Rovi
- Starring:
- Anna Paquin, Matt Damon, (more)
Every year, the New York Public School system sponsors a dance competition for youngsters in fifth grade; in this contest, boys and girls ages 10 and 11 learn traditional ballroom dancing styles such as the fox trot, the rumba, and the tango, and then pit their skills against other students from around the Big Apple. Mad Hot Ballroom is a documentary which offers an inside look at this event, as well as the teachers and students who take part, with a particular emphasis on three schools: P.S. 112, in a Bensonhurst neighborhood dominated by Italian and Asian families; P.S. 150, located in the wealthy and fashionable Tribeca district; and P.S. 115, a Washington Heights school where the vast majority of families live below the poverty line. Filmmaker Marilyn Agrelo follows the young dancers as they gain confidence and skill and grow into "little ladies and gentlemen," as one teacher puts it, while also examining how cultural differences impact the competition for some students and how the boys and girls feel about the opposite sex as they begin to make friends with one another. Mad Hot Ballroom received a wildly enthusiastic world premiere at the 2005 Slamdance Film Festival. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi
