Serialized vignettes explore couples on the verge of making babies

Grade: B

The pitch for “Conception,” a slightly skewed romantic comedy from writer-director Josh Stolberg (screenwriter on “Good Luck Chuck” & “Sorority Row”), probably reminded some of the gatekeepers that heard it of would-be mainstream crowd-pleasers like “Valentine’s Day” and “New Year’s Eve,” the broad ensemble pieces anchored by familiar names and faces reduced to sappy sit-com style love revues. Diminishing returns on the sentimental holiday-themed love fests have likely saved audiences from “Memorial Day” and a July 4th fireworks display complete with exploding hearts and Cupid’s arrows streaking across the skies, but Stolberg snuck in his take on Labor Day.

To be fair though, “Conception” definitely skews indie rather than driving home straight down main. Nine couples – I would like to say diverse couples, but true racial and ethnic diversity is sorely lacking – stand on the precipice, baring themselves, so to speak, and we see that in most cases, the moment of conception usually isn’t focused on conception at all.

Gloria (Connie Britton) & Brian (Jason Mantzoukas) and Nikki (Moon Bloodgood) & Tay (Pamela Adlon) are the only couples solely intent on procreation and their stories offer glimpses into the modern crises of couples struggling to conceive. For Gloria and Brian, there are the fertility issues involving women who have waited. “Conception” is all about maximizing opportunities and optimal positions to join the one intrepid sperm and the egg. In other words, this is less natural and more an examination of the body as a scientific experiment.

The science of conception lies between Nikki and Tay as well, but as lesbians longing to be parents, it is just the means to an end, so the moment sneaks back into the realm of emotion. Which of them will carry the child? How did they reach the point where they wanted to embark on the journey together? Love and longing and real desire are manifest between them and it is plain to see that they are entering this next phase with their eyes on their future as parents and a couple.

The other seven couples caught in the act are driven by needs and desires for sex and release, pure and simple. It could be argued that this really is how most babies are conceived, whether by couples that have been together for some time (and may even be linked by marriage and established families), new couplings or heated one-night stands. And Stolberg presents each of these situations with little fanfare and even less judgment. There appear to be no obvious links between the couples; there are no extended family dramas or connect-the-dot moments when one partner crosses paths with someone else in a coffee shop or the grocery store and there was the possibility for a different love connection.

“Conception” captures these baby-making roundelays in isolation, creating stark contrasts. Humor drives most of the encounters – the neurotic versus the erotic, as the tagline for the movie states – but there is genuine emotion throughout each. The couples struggle to bond, to fulfill their own desires, while also thinking of their partners and their satisfaction. I realize that I’ve made the movie sound more dramatic than it actually is, but it is refreshing, in some ways, because Stolberg didn’t shy away from the dramatic elements. By reducing things down to the core relationships and focusing on the intimacy between two people in a pivotal moment, you can’t help but spotlight the human drama, although certainly there’s room for poking fun at the ways in which life begins.

Reach DCP film critic T.T. Stern-Enzi at Film@DaytonCityPaper.com

John Madden’s Super-Group Retires to India

By T.T. Stern-Enzi

Based on Deborah Moggach’s novel These Foolish Things, The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel imagines a final adventure for a group of English men and women, one last hurrah where they can get away from the familiar day-to-day they’ve come to know all too well or busy families caught up in living in the digital now, which in some cases is hopelessly unknowable to their elders. Yet, the cast features a collection of egos and heavyweights worthy of a far grander heroic tale.

During split press conferences, director John Madden and actress Penelope Wilton shared time, while Dame Judi Dench and Tom Wilkinson held court on the second panel.

In response to the very first question, about handling the assemblage, Madden humorously (and with a bit of stiff British stoicism), points out that it was best “to keep out of the way.” Of course as the ringleader, Madden, a consummate team player and a true field captain could do no such thing; this team was at his command. His films (Mrs. Brown and Shakespeare in Love) have been decorated with BAFTA and Oscar nominations. He knew the best plan of attack was “to put them in the right place, tell them where the camera was going to be and let them get on with it.”

Hotel follows closely on the heels of The Debt, which featured Wilkinson, the thunderous thespian of the bunch. Quietly reserved as Graham Dashwood, a retired magistrate returning to India, where he spent his youth and seeks to resolve a secret that has haunted him for most of his adult life, Wilkinson provides more of a tempestuous charge during his joint press conference with Dench, the ultra cool and unflappable queen, yet completely believable as a less certain woman left to her own devices in a strange land. Rounding out the top tier is a wildcard. Wilton has made her presence known in films like Calendar Girls, Match Point, and quite hilariously in Shaun of the Dead, but she very nearly steals the Hotel from the heavy hitters as Jean Ainslie, an unhappily married woman who is completely dissatisfied with the exoticism of this final destination. She is smashingly honest in this most difficult role.

There is something mythic in the tale because it is about the journey of a group of people, each of them an Everyman and Everywoman in their own right, and this last trip will be a doozy. And why not? Sun-baked Jaipur might be the most exotic location left on the planet, the kind of setting that would challenge hardened tourists in their traveling primes. The exotic culture and its unique rituals, the teeming mass of humanity and the cacophony of languages, pushed the characters and the production as a whole to the limit.

Wilton seems to understand, and even appreciate her character’s reticence, thanks to dealing with moments on set that felt, as she recalls, more like “guerilla filmmaking.”

A particular moment springs to mind, that appears in the film, at the bus station, when the retirees are making their way to the hotel, and “Bill Nighy [a sharp-eyed reservist in support] has just helped [Penelope’s character] onto the bus and was supposed to turn around and help Judi Dench on, when some man had wandered into the shot.” Madden laughs as he relays the situation because “as he [Nighy] helped this man onto the bus, he completely improvised some hilarious exchange that made it into the film.”

What comes across onscreen as effortless is all about the herculean efforts to not let the effort show. And it appears again in choice sequences at the press conference, for instance, as Wilkinson and Dench, the old pros, good-cop, bad-cop their way through a minefield of questions about the difficulties of locations and soldiering on as actors nearing their twilight. Madden and his heroes may not be franchise-ready, but they won’t tire and they won’t ever grow old, not as long as these memories and images survive.

Reach DCP film critic T.T. Stern-Enzi at Film@DaytonCityPaper.com

Discussing 21 Jump Street and a Pair of New Releases

By T.T. Stern-Enzi

The advance buzz on the adaptation of 21 Jump Street left something to be desired. Months away from the movie’s release, moviegoers and critics alike expressed real trepidation. Would Channing Tatum’s bland blockheaded good looks bring in the ladies? What about the ever-changing Jonah Hill, a newly minted Oscar nominee — would this rising star continue to shine or would this be reminiscent of his raunchy stumble in The Sitter? Does the new generation of multiplex fans have any sense or connection to a gimmicky pop-cop show from the ‘80s, even with its reputation as the show that kickstarted the plunderific career of Captain Jack Sparrow?

I settled in for the preview screening with no expectations, which really means I was totally prepared for a two-inch vertical, at best — and that factors in my genuine love for Hill’s comedic chops. A long-trending topic in the film and television industry, the crossover of projects from the multiplex to the home box and vice versa is a curious notion, especially the jump from television to big screen in an age dominated by reality programming. Maybe the golden age was the ‘80s, hence 21 Jump Street.

A funny thing happened on the way. The movie was actually funny, hilarious, in fact. Another raunchy teen-based comedy, following closely on the heels of the epic Project X party, Jump Street capitalizes on its detonation of the rules of decorum and taste, but it also packs a sly punch line in its depiction of the reversal of fortunes among the high school social network. The gleeful geeks now reign supreme. Everyone wants to be a fey geek, which means that a shy nerd like Hill’s Schmidt gets to go back, as an undercover narc, and enjoy the fruits of his labor, while the cool jock Jenko (Tatum) is left wondering what went so wrong in the natural order. Who knew smart social commentary could be so much fun? And after a strong opening day (on the way to booking a big-time box office arrest), Sony has already signed up for a sequel.

Among the chattering class, speculation runs rampant. What’s going to be the next series to make the jump from television into the feature film franchise ranks? Arrested Development can’t seem to develop beyond its loyal cult base and there just aren’t enough hours or terrorist threats left to generate a 24 feature.

Well, why not Breakout Kings, the A&E series about a special FBI program that uses cons to catch recent escapees from federal prisons. March 13th marks the street date for the first season on DVD, while the second season opened with the shocking death of one of the Kings. There’s no real breakout star among the cast, but the premise, with its shades of 48 Hours, has the kind of episodic hook that a team of screenwriters could spin into a string of sequels and reboots ad nauseum.

Or maybe we should stick to the notion that some stories belong on television, where the details and red herrings of a show like The Killing can create a weekly web of intrigue. Based on a Danish crime procedural, the US edition, also on A&E, has a thirteen-episode season (the Complete First Season is out now) that follows a police investigation into a murder with all the tangential strands of family, various community elements and the overall political landscape coming into play. Many fans were confused by the lack of closure at the end of the first season, but will likely be drawn back in once the second season arrives on April 1st with a two-hour premiere.

It sounds silly to say that television is the new real, in terms of narrative storytelling, when so much airtime is devoted to the reality of housewives, bachelors, song & dance competitions and celebrity chef cook-offs, but cablers A&E and HBO are proving to be the last bastions of action and drama with production values that jump out of the box and off the screen.

Reach DCP film critic T.T. Stern-Enzi at Film@DaytonCityPaper.com

By T.T. Stern-Enzi

Michael C. Hall in ‘Dexter’

What has Jim Thompson wrought?

One of the best writers in the crime genre published “The Killer Inside Me” in 1952, and the book became an underground classic. The protagonist, Lou Ford, was a small town Texas deputy sheriff with a slow and meandering way about him. Ford was the quintessential good old boy, but he had a secret — a deep, dark sickness, that flared up once when he was young and rears its ugly head again, years later, with startling results.

Ford was a killer, a stark raving sociopath with a hunger that couldn’t be satiated. The story teased filmmakers for decades. The bloody advent of the late 1960s and the raw grit of the early 1970s (The Wild Bunch, Bonnie & Clyde, Taxi Driver) presented appetizers that promised a meaty meal to come, but Ford never arrived on the plate; not until Michael Winterbottom seduced Casey Affleck to walk on the wild side again (after his dead-eyed turn in The Assassination of Jesse James By the Coward Robert Ford) in 2010 with The Killer Inside Me. Killers grab critical acclaim (and a lesser take) at the box office, but they thrive in our homes on the small screen.

It seems that contemporary audiences suffer from a similar disorder, a need to see and know this kind of killer. To not only understand what makes him tick, but to also sympathize, to root for him to appease the parasitic urge.

Showtime seized upon the work of writer Jeff Lindsay for its most-watched original series Dexter, which details the exploits of a serial killer, Dexter Morgan (Michael C. Hall) who also happens to be a member of a crime scene investigation unit in Miami. Dexter’s twist is that he uses his dark urge for good, targeting only other killers, the real criminals that his team seeks to bring to justice. Season five (which hit the streets on Blu-Ray and DVD August 16) finds Dexter trying to cope with the death of his wife as he wanders into the future as a single dad. Will he, or better yet, can he raise a baby alone and will his son be tainted by the same darkness? As a contrast, the season spotlights a woman (guest star Julia Stiles) seeking revenge on the men who abused her and her growing relationship with Dexter. At every turn, efforts are made to humanize Dexter, but the luridly absurd mix of crime drama/police procedural and mystery/horror counteracts them. It is all just a show and a bit of a sham.

Somehow though, the first season of the Criminal Minds spinoff, Criminal Minds: Suspect Behavior, chillingly achieves the desired results. Introduced during season five of that series, this elite “red cell” Behavioral Analysis Unit headed by Special Agent Sam Cooper (Academy Award winner Forest Whitaker) jets off each week to assist local police in the apprehension of the most baffling killers. These profilers gather enough clues to “enter” the minds of their dangerous prey in order to prevent them from continuing their vicious sprees. The show, unlike the Law & Order franchise or the CSI family of police procedurals, doesn’t have a “straight from the headlines” feel, due to the fact that the real life work of FBI profilers is more classified, but that doesn’t mean that Suspect Behavior is any less disturbing. There are hints of character development when it comes to Cooper’s handpicked team of specialists, yet they, to a large extent, don’t matter. It is the cases themselves — the horrific stories of the killers, those that are easily explained away and the others, the ones where we are given a glimpse of pure ordinary evil — that haunt us long after the team ties up the loose ends.

We don’t root for these killers. These are the ones we fear, and rightly so.

Reach DCP film critic T.T. Stern-Enzi at Film@DaytonCityPaper.com.

By T.T. Stern-Enzi

Jeff Brides from the original 'Tron' film released in 1982

As a casual geek from back in the day, my memories of the Tron experience revolved around the game more so than the movie, a surprising fact for a film critic to admit, but I’m willing to take my admission one significant step further – I didn’t remember the movie itself, at all. So when the buzz surrounded Tron: Legacy, the follow-up to the “phenomenon” that was Tron, well, I maintained a subdued hush because I was waiting for the inevitable release of the original film on Blu-Ray and DVD to stoke the fires before the triumphant Legacy cut a huge swath across the multiplexes as it made its way into the annuls of box office glory.
A funny thing happened on the way towards that path; Disney took a hard unfathomable left turn by refusing to release the earlier film on DVD prior to the debut of the sequel. The studio teased audiences with extended advance scenes, a nearly half-hour trailer to showcase the IMAX 3D efforts to modernize the world of the Grid, but kept Tron under wraps, which imprisoned me even further in the dark along with all of the non-geeks who never got onboard the first go-round in the 1980s.
Now, months after Tron: Legacy has come and gone from the big screen, Disney finally reissues the original Tron along with Tron: Legacy hoping to spark a revolutionary call for the follow-up to Legacy that exists right now as little more than a whisper campaign, although there is an animated television series in development now to tide audiences over in the meantime.
So, finally, we get to see a truly young Jeff Bridges (pre-Big Lebowski, Crazy Heart and True Grit) as Flynn, the videogame genius intent on hacking his way into the mainframe of his former employer to prove that the industry giant has been stealing and capitalizing off his ideas. Flynn looks and feels like a rock star in an age of big hair bands and pixilated cursors, before the world or anyone in it even dreamed of a digital life of social networks. Tron is all flat architecture with green graph lines and cheap plastic suits and dialogue that explains everything twice rather than simply trusting its visual scheme to show us what the future might look and feel like.
Tron may have been the inspirational call-to-arms for a generation of programmers and dreamers who went off and spawned the Internet and social networks with music file sharing and films like The Matrix, but it suffers immensely from being the first of its kind in an age when technological change occurs in the span of a couple of keystrokes. Tron looks like it was created pre-computer and long before the invention of narrative development.
Legacy gains credibility through comparison to the original, but that is not to say that it is a marvelous or bold step forward either. Flynn’s reckless and now full-grown son (Garrett Hedlund) who has grown up largely without the presence of his father receives a message that sends him on a quest into the cyber world to find his long-lost father and free that world from tyranny. The Grid now looks like the future (circa 2003 maybe) and the movie feels like a pastiche of all of the sci-fi dreamscapes we’ve seen since the mid-1990s. The action is slicker and brutal, although sanitized for a PG audience; the single greatest effect is likely the oddly wooden version of Flynn, a digital transformation of current Bridges into a younger man.
Watching Bridges and his younger doppleganger, I found myself wishing for a reboot rather than a sequel. Why not remake Tron and push forward with Tron: Legacy simultaneously like some many productions have done recently? Looking so far back for inspiration meant that the Legacy we were granted arrived already dated and I’ve already started erasing it from my memory bank.

Reach DCP film critic T.T. Stern-Enziat film@daytoncitypaper.com.

By T. T. Stern-Enzi

Steve Zahn, (real-life New Orleans musician) Kermit Ruffins and Wendell Pierce in 'Treme.'

Asking Anne Hathaway and James Franco to host the Academy Awards was an open invitation, likely the first truly meaningful nod to the next generation of performers in line to claim a seat at the adult table. The DVD proof that substantiates their right to this honor arrived on March 1, almost immediately following the Oscar telecast. Hathaway snagged a Golden Globe nomination for her performance in Love & Other Drugs (along with co-star Jake Gyllenhall), but failed to attract a much more coveted Best Actress Oscar slot. Far too much attention centered on Hathaway’s naked efforts to tug our heartstrings as a sexy Parkinson’s patient who is unwilling to lay down and suffer.
Franco fared better in Danny Boyle’s follow-up, 127 Hours, to his Academy Award winning Slumdog Millionaire. Hours, based on the life-affirming true story of Aron Ralston, a reckless, yet experienced climber who endures five days trapped under a boulder in a canyon before tapping into deep personal and spiritual reserves to do what he must to free himself. The film and Franco’s Best Actor nominated performance are both stunning for their bravado and ingenuity, although the documented experience simply may have been too much for audiences to handle on the big screen.
Both performers and their films will likely enjoy a bump from these DVD releases. Love, despite the serious illness at the heart of its drama, has an indomitable free spirit in Hathaway that buoys the illness angle. Hathaway brandished the same charm during the Oscar’s nearly Titanic-scale sinking. 127 Hours, much like its over-exposed star Franco, should shine brighter now that the harsh glare of the spotlight is gone because the focus will get back to the film itself, which more sensitive audiences can watch at their own pace and discover even more details of Ralston’s story and the making of the film.
Another young, rising star, Ryan Gosling, joins Hathaway and Franco on the March DVD release schedule with All Good Things, the psychological thriller from Academy Award nominee Andrew Jarecki (Best Documentary: Feature, Capturing the Friedmans), which explores, in a fictionalized framework, one of the most infamous New York missing persons cases in history. Spanning 30 years, the film sifts through the details surrounding the marriage of a wealthy real estate heir (Gosling), the disappearance of his wife and the suspicion of his involvement, which continues. The most compelling aspects of this March 29 offering (making it an intriguing must-have) are the bonus features. Primarily the first-ever audio commentary of Robert Durst, the subject of this original true crime saga.
The March 29 arrival of the first season of the new David Simon series Treme caps off a fantastic month of DVD releases. The acclaimed creator of the HBO series The Wire set his sights on New Orleans, in the months following Hurricane Katrina seeking to document the aftermath of the crisis as residents attempt to pick themselves up, with little meaningful assistance from an ill-equipped federal response bureaucracy. As he and his team did with the city of Baltimore, Simon concentrates on the people, the characters that define New Orleans, which means we see not only actors playing musicians and restaurateurs, and Mardi Gras performers struggling to reclaim what the rising waters could not take from them, but also real musicians associated with the region (Allen Toussaint, Dr. John, Troy “Trombone Shorty” Andrews and Kermit Ruffins), top chefs familiar with the local cuisine (Tom Colicchio David Chang, Eric Ripert and Wylie Dufresne), and actual Mardi Gras chiefs like jazz great Donald Harrison Jr. It is this blending and blurring of fiction and fact that makes for great storytelling and heralds Treme’s anxiously awaited second season with newly minted Oscar winner Melissa Leo (The Fighter) on the bandwagon once again.
Welcome back.

Reach DCP film critic T.T. Stern-Enzi at film@daytoncitypaper.com.

By T.T. Stern-Enzi

DVD and Blu-Ray releases transport viewers back in time. The shifts can be recent – reflections off the multiplex screens from a few months ago to repeats of a just passed television season – or generational jaunts into unfamiliar ages.

For a classic journey, look no further than the critically acclaimed releases from the libraries of 20th Century Fox and MGM. The Home Entertainment divisions of these two studios have taken it upon themselves to educate the masses, not only in regard to great cinema, but also amazing literary adaptations. Be prepared to bone up on the likes of Anna Karenina, The Grapes of Wrath, Henry V, How Green Was My Valley, Inherit The Wind, Jane Eyre, Journey to the Center of the Earth (not to be confused with the CGI remake from a few years ago with Brendan Fraser), The Lion in Winter, Les Miserables, Lord of the Flies, Much Ado About Nothing, Moby Dick, Of Mice and Men, Richard III, and The Children’s Hour. That’s quite a daunting list of titles, so I chose three (The Grapes of Wrath, Moby Dick and Richard III) for my initial literary refresher course and found Richard III to be the A+ choice. Director Richard Loncraine’s mesmerizing reimagining of this bloody rein from Shakespeare transports the passionate tale of blinding ambition to an alternative early 20th century setting with Britain rebuilding after a civil war and the powers that be drifting close to the tyranny of a fascist state with Richard (Ian McKellen) pulling all the strings. This production features an eclectic all-star cast (Annette Bening, Robert Downey Jr., and Kristin Scott Thomas) that continues to usurp the multiplexes and the art houses.

MGM isn’t just interested in broadening our cultural horizons though. The studio also understands the power of period nostalgia and has a six-pack of films from the 1980s to tickle the fancies of viewers seeking little more than a good time. Who can forget Nicolas Cage in the 1983 hit Valley Girl, which helped to put him on the cinematic map? Key members of the lauded Brat Pack make appearances (in less noted films and roles) – Tom Cruise in Losin’ It, Andrew McCarthy and Rob Lowe in Class – and there’s even a sighting of television’s dynamic dimwitted duo, Scott Baio and Willie Ames, in Zapped! My favorite here though would have to be The Rachel Papers from 1989. Papers smartly plays out the end of the run for the rom-coms of the day that focused on anonymous nerdy guys (Dexter Fletcher pens and spins Papers) winning the coveted trophy girls from the rich preppy boys (and who better defines that revolting class than poster boy James Spader who found a way to move on and become a model television citizen on Boston Legal alongside William Shatner). The curiosity/guilty pleasure factor in the mix here is Ione Skye, the belle of the ball from Say Anything, who launched a thousand crushes (likely for both guys and gals) back in the day despite her limited acting range. She had one expression, but it was heavenly and it remains hard to resist.

Yet, it is television that claims the final noteworthy spot in this installment of the Bonus Features. As a film critic, it is tough for me to pursue the treasures and gems of the small screen because I spend most evenings cruising the multiplexes for the best and brightest lights. Now, I can’t always take the high road when there happens to be a trashy good time out there that just entertains the hell out of me, which is the case with the FX series It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia (I could easily rename this one It’s Always Damned Funny in Philly). Season Five finds the gang from Paddy’s Bar doing what they do as crudely as ever. It could be argued that Mac (Rob McElhenney), Dennis (Glenn Howerton), Charlie (Charlie Day), Dee (Kaitlin Olson) and Frank (Danny Devito) are little more than a loosely scripted version of Johnny Knoxville’s Jackass and while the stunts and gags here fall short of the epic lunacy of the MTV reality series (and the film adaptations), Philadelphia has a sense of story and place (“The World Series Defense” might supplant Rocky as the quintessential Philadelphia tale of the ages) that can’t be matched by those
other Jackasses.

Reach DCP film critic T.T. Stern-Enzi at T.T. Stern-Enzi@daytoncitypaper.com

By T.T. Stern-Enzi

Robert Duvall in Get Low, Rated PG-13, Grade: A

Based in part on the true story of a legendary Tennessee loner from the 1930s, Get Low starts with a fever dream, a house afire and a figure, a man who dives from an upper story window and staggers off as the house continues to burn.  We are to assume that the mysterious survivor of the blaze was Felix Bush (Robert Duvall), the mythic old hermit every rural community used to whisper about, but we wonder what happened inside and if there were others who failed to make it out.

When next we see him, he’s doing what crazy country hermits do – scaring the piss out a young boy who dares to poke around Bush’s house for a look at the old man. Soon after that, he’s beating the tar out of a man in town, someone who dared to address him, boldly warning the old man to leave the town and its good citizens alone, because everyone knows he’s not suitable for proper society.

Bush ventured in to ask the church pastor (Gerald McRaney) to handle his funeral. He came with a fat wad of money and a plan, one that catches the attention of Frank Quinn (Bill Murray) who runs the one and only funeral home in town, along with his earnest assistant Buddy (Lucas Black). The plan, such as it is, involves a hosting a funeral before Bush’s death, one in which the whole town is invited to come and tell stories about Bush, every tall tale, lie, fable and whispered half-truth, to lay it all to rest, and maybe even discover the whole unvarnished truth about the man and that burning house.

After he meets Mattie Darrow (Sissy Spacek), we learn that they had a brief relationship, which generates a low-key rivalry between Bush and the huckster Quinn, but further deepens and becomes more sordid when we realize that Bush may have also been involved with Darrow’s sister who died under mysterious circumstances.

It is a pleasure to watch Duvall engaged with old pros like Spacek and Murray. Murray, in particular, infuses the expected comedic elements, but he’s never playing the lines strictly for laughs.

For all the heavy hitters though, the real surprise is Black’s Buddy. He is the figure audiences most identify with because through him we can see the effect Bush has on those young enough to have been spooked by the old man, but who, later on, could be awed by his authenticity and mannered charm.

Director Aaron Schneider takes the helm of his first feature film and digs deep into the material. He guides his cast down into the depths where they can get dirty in the messy affairs and secrets, knowing of course that everything will come clean in the end.

Get Low will be shown exclusively at the
Neon Movies.

Reach DCP film critic
T.T. Stern-Enzi at contactus@
daytoncitypaper.com