The $70 million dollar project was the subject of a conflicted profile in New York magazine this week, and while reading it, we finally understood why it’s so hard to muster enthusiasm about a project that will surely be majestic in scope and innovative in form. The profile contains a few key quotes that tell you all you need in order to understand why the Broadway world isn’t rallying behind this show with optimism, but rather plaguing it with cynicism — sometimes in contradictory ways.

Although the piece is about “Spider-man: Turn Off the Dark,” what the article is really about is Julie Taymor. She is a much more important character in this, so far, than Peter Parker is — a precocious, savvy and audacious MacArthur grant winner, Taymor comes across as admirably ambitious, but in a way that will turn off theater-lovers, makers and promoters. While describing what kind of genre her show is (will be?), she says:

“[The press wants] two character, one-set musicals. How is that helping the theater?”

The problem with this, of course, is that this places Taymor into the role of someone who is helping the theater – by doing something that it’s never done before, like bringing in a “drama-rock-and-roll-circus,” as she calls it, to 42nd street. Which is awesome! But it makes her sound condescending, as if “theater” couldn’t progress without her. Bringing a comic book story to a musical stage is already something that makes people weary; acting like it’s a gift to the industry is a good way to make people increasingly put off.

But of course, there’s a personality component to this that maybe should be left out all together. Jesse Green, the piece’s writer, says:

“Taymor’s laserlike, slightly alien intensity–and perhaps her gender–make her an easy target.”

The theater community, especially the producers, writers and directors on the bigger productions, are struggling to keep shows open and profitable, and here’s Julie Taymor and her millions upon millions of dollars and time spent on a musical that doesn’t even respect their “one-set musicals.” Of course she’s an easy target for frustration on insular Broadway, when even a Green Day musical can’t capture the popularity it deserves. And there’s the sexism aspect, which is unforgivably omnipresent in the treatment of the musical, especially in such a manly genre as the comicbook/Bono world. But Taymor has lucked out, seemingly just being handed projects like The Lion King and the first-ever Beatles musical movie, one of which she made into a smash hit and one of which she creatively broke. The most beloved pop franchises have been Taymor’s to uphold or mess with, and many creative directors would relish the chance to have the same access to those big-ticket items as she does.

The potential for reward is huge, which is also why the risks are often focused on. But in all the talk about what the musical will mean for Broadway, there’s much less conversation about what the musical will mean for its audience. Broadway is increasingly frequented by female viewers, and this musical gives the industry a chance to attract an equal, or greater, amount of men. The comic book world has been popularized by young males, and although we’re not sure whether the “musical” aspect is a big draw, U2 is as close to a guarantee as one can get. But one of the risks of creating a brainy, Cirque-du-Soley-y show for the bro crowd is that such a show would probably not appeal to that demographic’s opposite: the young “theater person.” Describing the types of people who will like the show, Taymor tells Green,

“‘[I wanted to do a] piece that will translate not just to 13-year-old-boys, which I think this will,’ but also to ‘snooty-nosed types’ and ‘I couldn’t be bothered with Broadway’ geeks.”

But the Broadway geeks are the core demographic of every Broadway show, Julie! If she wants to become a legend and wants to create a show that changes the course of theater, the show has to be beloved. And if she publicly derides that part of her audience, won’t they (we?) hear her?

Michael Riedel, the NY Post theater columnist, is quoted in the piece as one of the main Spider-man musical haters. He has covered the multiple glitches on the show, including injuries, with sass (as he does for other shows, too), and the writer asks him why. Riedel responds,

“I cover a business–I’m not doing God’s work here. And they’re not doing God’s work either.”

The beginning of the piece zooms in on Taymor’s mic, which is dubbed the “God Mic” and makes other spiritual allusions while describing the creator and handler of “Turn off the Dark.” So it’s no surprise that Riedel wishes to dispel the notion that this is somehow holylike, and that a musical about a comic book hero can elevate theater to that kind of sublime. While we’d never argue that it can’t — never! — it is clear that once you display your ambition for greatness, everyone will be quick to try to tear you down.

Helen Mirren, star in Taymor’s upcoming adaptation of “The Tempest,” calls her “Egotistical in the correct way.” The greatest artists can’t be faulted for their personality aggrandizement, and if it leads to great art, it was probably in “the correct way.” But it’s beyond argument that the production has handled its faults without humility, and that this kind of attitude hurts the perception of a show which should be playful, daring, and inviting — almost as if it needed to have control over its future legacy before the first curtain rises. If it ever rises.

Nirvana, 1993
Perhaps the most well-known Unplugged, Nirvana’s set is a favorite among many for capturing the nakedness that Kobain usually showed live, and for the moment it embodied. Matt Mills writes in: “He took his life not long after the show aired and I just remember being shellshocked.  I taped the show on my VCR and must have watched it 50 times.”

For the first two minutes of the trailer, the viewer is granted blissful ignorance of the film’s title. This is really quite generous! But of course, from the general rich-girls-suck tone of the opening montage, we quickly understand that something terrible will happen to these privileged sisters, one who likes Prada (A CLUE!) and who…wears glasses. One of them says “No Hablo Español” out of nowhere to a douchey guy driving a convertible, which is slightly offensive, but we’ll move on.

So there’s the girl from Spy Kids, and the girl from every last-minute Teen Vogue cover/spread/MET Ball caption who was in a Jonas Brothers video, and sure, they’re both cute. [Of course, no one is really thinking this, because Camilla Belle is virtually unrecognizable, unless you're someone who has always been creepily fascinated by the disproportionate relationship between the amount of press she gets and the amount of roles she gets].

Then their father dies, and he was bankrupt, and yes of course, they’re terrified — because they lost their house. And their credit cards. And their dad. Not so much the last one, though.

And then it gets even worse for them! Which is great, because who doesn’t love a riches-to-rags story? Even rich people probably love them, because they’re still watching them on a free screener DVD from their friends at Warner Brothers in their movie-studio-den. And this one doesn’t even feature the Duff sisters, so it’s an inevitable step up from the last version that Hollywood rolled out. And the script seems off but not absolutely lost, so what’s the problem?

The problem is that Mary and Nora are Mexican-Americans. That presents an issue both for us, watching, and for them, living it: they have to go live in East L.A. to live with relatives, and we have to deal with the repeated references to cliches about Mexican people that don’t go away even when Mary and Nora inevitably embrace their poverty — sorry, I mean their “cultural heritage.” At one point, a white guy love-interest actually says “You look like Frida Kahlo!” to Camilla Belle, dressed in a traditional dress. Actually!

There are almost no movies that are strictly about Latinas, and especially Mexican girls, unless J-Lo is playing a maid, America Ferreira is playing a fat girl, or Salma Hayek is playing, well, Frida Kahlo. Now there’s a movie coming out that demonizes both the new-money post-immigrant class for distancing themselves from their culture, as well as the “homeboy” street life on the other side of town that only represents fear and crime. The supporting characters are the scary reggaeton-blasting gang members, the abuelas, the immigration police, and the family members with very long last names, all of which are used as punch lines. There are no winners, because everybody looks like an asshole.

Not to mention that the Mexican love-interest is played by Wilder Valderrama, in a slap in the face to all adorable Mexican actors, and actually, all actors, everywhere.

The cultural divide within the Mexican immigrant community is a very real one, and the Sense and Sensibility story is a worthy lens through which to explore it. There’s also an enormous audience in the Spanglish-speaking community for movies that talk about Mexican community life. But this movie is based on toxic Mexican stereotypes, and I don’t think they’re even a turn-on for any kind of audience. Except racists. And why would anyone make a movie solely for racists? To make a movie with repeated ethnic jokes for a tween audience is completely unfair. It may portray materialism in a negative light, but not without damaging an entire culture as well. The movie was written and directed by people of Hispanic descent who have made few other films, but most seem to be about Latin subjects — how could they have written this? And if they didn’t, accepting studio changes, how could they stand for it now?

Originally turned down by MTV executives in 1989 who suggested that the concept be taken to PBS, the show has created some of the most epic and beloved music moments of the past two decades. In an age when the “M” in MTV has officially (officially!) lost all meaning, the Unplugged format is shockingly still alive, and actually gives that “M” its last remaining bit of dignity.

Although its most recent incarnation is an online-only feature and the 2009 Emmy-winning series consisted of performers like Katy Perry and Vampire Weekend — not exactly Lauryn Hill and Nirvana — it still adds a flavorful counterpart to the VMA-type megashows. Perry’s Unplugged even manages to prove that she can sing, for which it should win a zeitgeist-shattering award, at least.  Phoenix and Reba McEntire have also been featured recently, and it’s not like that’s at the Ke$ha and Fall Out Boy, right? But that’s where it’s probably headed, says former Unplugged director Matt Mills.

“B.O.b. does not deserve an Unplugged,” he told us about the one-hit outfit whose performance was done in September. When we searched for a video, we found MTV TJ Gabbi Greg’s blog, where she wrote about how much she loved B.O.b’s Unplugged cover of MGMT’s “Kids” — and yes, the song was fine, but unfortunately, it was actually a cover of “The Kids Don’t Stand a Chance” by Vampire Weekend (and no one seems to have noticed).

“And Adam Lambert? Really? He doesn’t even play an instrument,” says Mills, who was the first director to win an Emmy for Unplugged (for “Best New Approach”) and whose company Space Station Media is no longer in charge of the series.

Now the series is overseen by vh1, and Unplugged is under the “Vh1 Live” umbrella. With the exponential rise of popular music acts who you might be terrified to hear without autotune, the Unplugged format finds itself in a strange middle ground: those artists who can shine in acoustic settings should be a treat during a series that spotlights their talent, but if its parent company starts featuring performers who never plugged in their guitars in the first place, is it even interesting anymore? And if the internet lets us listen in on more compelling artists on their own Youtube pages or on La Blogotheque’s “Take Away Shows,” is the middleman even necessary? Unplugged masterfully lives up to MTV’s focus on reality programming and its original toast to the essence of music — but its way of doing it is probably no longer what execs have in mind.

Later today we’ll have a look back at the best Unplugged shows ever, so if you have a favorite you’d like to include, tell us in the comments, and click here to enjoy an MTV Uncensored video about the history of Unplugged.

2. “In its extreme self-consciousness, the album Fantasy reminds me most of is John Lennon’s cathartic 1970 Plastic Ono Band record.” The Guardian reviews My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy with an astute comparison of Kanye West to John Lennon, declaring that both this and Lennon’s Plastic Ono Band record were “made by one of the great talents of their age, at the peak of their celebrity, thoroughly dissatisfied with themselves.” [via The Guardian]

3. David O. Russel has finally made a “feel-good movie,” according to Newsweek, with The Fighter. Oh come on, as if I <3 Huckabees wasn’t just the warm-and-fuzziest movie about existentialism and corporate expansion ever made! [via Newsweek]

4. Elling, the English adaptation of a Norwegian bestseller and Brendan Fraser‘s Broadway debut, will close after only 22 previews and nine regular performances. It’s shocking to see how its two main selling points failed to capture an audience (!?) but we’re sad to see it go before it hit its stride (It was worth it just to see Jennifer Coolidge on stage). [via NYT]

5. Beyonce vs. Taylor Swift, Prime-Time Thanksgiving Version: Two blondes, but only one seemed to be having fun. Guess which? [via Arts Beat]

Bonus link: What Carles is thankful for in 2k10.

Jennifer Love Hewitt Times Infinity, despite its charm and highly-marketable title, can’t be found in bookstores, nor will you encounter an advertisement of it engineered by anyone but Fanning himself or his many online fans. That’s because Fanning, a recruiter by day and writer by nights and weekends, publishes it and markets it himself through an internet-fueled one-man operation he’s been building since 1999. “I think in our culture we have this warped view of artistic success as not being real unless it’s how you earn your living,” Fanning told us, “But I find this mind-boggling. I think it holds a lot of people back from creating cool things.”

Fortunately, it hasn’t held Fanning back — and his latest, which is available in print and for the Kindle, is a testament of the widening book marketplace that Fanning is helping define by skipping the market and going straight to the online places where fans value the craft and buy books. In this exclusive interview, we talked to Fanning about his angelic protagonist, Tumblr, and the stigma of self-publishing.

What’s so special about Jennifer Love Hewitt? Could it have been anyone else?
I’ve written stories about a lot of celebrities, but there was never any question that this collection would be about anyone other than her. I’m really interested in the idea of celebrities as our modern mythology, and as far as a celebrity you can imagine alternate histories for, a celebrity you can attach different motivations and meanings to, she’s perfect. She’s really famous, but she’s not a lightning rod for controversy the way a Britney or a Lindsey Lohan is. We know a little bit about her personal life, but not terribly much, compared to a lot of other actors. She has fans, but nothing approaching the rabidity of Team Edward. The type of fame she’s carved out for herself is the perfect backdrop for the stories I want to tell. I would be happy writing about her for a long time.

Tell me about your publishing process. You have a lot of different websites, all with different names and brands — is this all a one-man operation?
I started my first website, whygodwhy.com, in 1999. I knew I wanted to use the internet as a way to find an audience for my writing. Along the way I started wanting to make things for people to read offline, but I didn’t want to follow the traditional route of editorial and publishing gatekeepers. Everything has just grown from there. It’s all me, there’s no real budget and no real plan. I’ve been figuring it out as I go. Sales of each book fund the one that comes after it. I stamp the envelopes, I sign each copy. I get excited seeing a new name I haven’t before; I’ve discovered new websites and made new friends through the process of selling my books myself. I can’t imagine doing it any other way.

I first heard about this book on Tumblr. Did you consciously decide to focus your marketing efforts there? If so, what do you think of the medium?
I love Tumblr. It’s a very aesthetically-focused community, and there’s instantaneous feedback between publisher and audience. I have an all-or-nothing approach to spreading the word about my books — I post to my websites, my email newsletter, Facebook, Goodreads, Flickr, Twitter, anywhere that I normally spend part of my day anyway. Tumblr is easy to use, there are tons of people there, and with everyone reblogging and “liking” things, small marketing efforts have a nice ripple effect, so that ends up being where I concentrate most of my efforts.

Were you worried about whether people would be able to get past the initial shock of the name and truly get into the details of the stories?
I was worried that people would think the stories were “funny” but not engage with them in a deeper way, or that people would assume my intent was mean-spirited in some way. But my fears were totally unfounded; people’s reactions to the book have been far beyond what I’d hoped. It’s been amazing to see so many people posting about it on their blogs or emailing me to tell me how much they loved this collection. It’s been great.

Do you consider writing your main profession? You’ve achieved what many writers dream of — a following, continuous publishing, and a paycheck.
I consider writing a part of who I am, but just one of the things I do. I have a day job that pays the rent, and that I happen to really like. I think in our culture we have this warped view of artistic success as not being real unless it’s how you earn your living. I find this mind-boggling. I think it holds a lot of people back from creating cool things.

Why don’t you do that much press? Is there a conscious effort to self-market?
Marketing is a job in itself, and ultimately I’m more focused on whatever my next project is. I think there’s a stigma attached to self-publishing, i.e. if it’s self-published, it must be that no one thought it was good enough to publish. So there’s a challenge in not only getting the word out to people, but getting them to take the work seriously. It would be a fun problem to have if my books found an audience that was so large I couldn’t handle self-publishing, but for now I’m happy to just focus on the work.

Do you hope Jennifer Love Hewitt reads your book?
I hope everyone reads this book. But yes, it’d be great if she did. I can’t imagine she wouldn’t like it.

Before even entering the arena, it became clear that Mayer’s fanbase had not aged with him. This was not a show for the now-twentysomethings who may have cherished Room for Squares in late 2001, but for the junior-high girls who conveniently downloaded it on iTunes when its icon popped up next to Continuum. For maybe the first time in my life, I was at a show where “I hope he plays the early stuff” felt as embarrassing as it did thrilling. I have about as little control over my teenage nostalgia as I did over which albums end up shaping those awkward years, and my fate had been sealed when I scratched my copy of Room for Squares to the point that I still expect “No Such Thing” to skip at the twenty-three second mark whenever I hear it.

Mayer’s influence on my young heart, however, didn’t stop me from actually laughing as the show’s theatrics began to unfold. Of course, the Grammys and the tabloids had inflated his ego as the decade progressed, but I still wasn’t expecting the giant black and white image of his torso that was being projected onto a tall gauzy curtain around the stage; his tattoo sleeves reaching higher than the statue of liberty. When the man — not the projection — finally came out, I remembered that in the years since I saw Mayer play Irving Plaza, he had stopped wearing shirts with sleeves and using an acoustic guitar. It was like watching an old friend finally play out the larger than life fantasy he’d imagined in his air guitar days in both admiration and horror.

At first, he seemed surprisingly quiet, running through his last two albums, Continuum and Battle Studies, quickly and with little patter. But eventually, the dueling impulses of a cocky romantic came out, battling for the spotlight. “Is anyone out there perfectly lonely?” he asked, championing his ode to freedom and letting us all know that he was doing just fine alone, thank you very much. Not much later, however, he launched into a sweet monologue about the plague of lovelessness, urging everyone to find company before they spiraled into the path of anger and hate that results from being alone. Then, a self-aware intro to “Half of My Heart,” declaring that he hopes to look back on the time when he “only used half of my dumb heart” as a short phase in the encyclopedia of his life.

Back when Mayer sang mostly about imaginary relationships or daydreams about future scenarios, the songs were brighter and it was easier to tap into the aspirations of the brokenhearted yet hopeful singer. As he played his latest songs on Friday, however, it was clear that Battle Studies is Mayer’s most obvious “I love you, but fuck you” album, but that the post-Battle Studies Mayer is leaning back towards the optimistic spirit. He may have opened his encore with “Who Says,” a somewhat depressing song about getting stoned by himself and not remembering your face, but closed with the last lines of “Gravity”: “Come on, keep me where the light is.”

To anyone who read the Playboy interview and quickly labeled him as a douche bag and nothing more: as you can see, Mayer’s back-and-forth between an asshole and a romeo isn’t an act, but a deeply-ingrained battle between a desire for acceptance and a reflex that causes him to alienate people before they have a chance to reject him. One of the most misunderstood aspects of Mayer’s personality is his obsession with being “well-liked,” a quality he shares with most of the human race but fails at in front of cameras and tape-recorders, leading him to cover up his screw-ups with both heartfelt apologies and self-sabotaging acts of preemptive protection — sometimes simultaneously.

It’s a pity that the quality of his albums has deteriorated since his debut (we’ll just have to agree to disagree, Grammy committee), and that the latter records made up the majority of his set list on Friday. In my view, his songs were never as good as on his initial EP and first album — but almost as a consolation prize, the banter on Friday night showed glimmers of that early John Mayer, the forward-looking romantic atoning for his stupid mouth, ready to get back on track. I can’t really know whether this is a natural part of the cycle, one that’s taken longer for him to get out of, or an exaggerated fallout from the Playboy interview. But either way, it seems as though his latest works and his most recent public disasters might just signal a return to form.

While reading Eating the Dinosaur, his fifth collection of essays on the meaning of various old and new pop phenomena, it’s impossible not to notice this — and feel really strange about it. Although Klosterman has not changed a bit since 2001, when his first book Fargo Rock City was published, the culture-media landscape in which his readers live — and which he supposedly dissects — definitely has. And that poses a problem for the reader, who is now used to drowning in links, tweets, and Gossip Girl recaps, and who might think it’s a bit jarring to find a reference to very-current The Hills in a printed essay about Nirvana (especially when the book came out while The Hills was still on the air).

There is a moment when this will stop feeling strange, becomes natural, and actually starts feeling really good. It is for that moment that you should buy it and read it — only once you’ve turned off your laptop and hid it somewhere you forget. Eating the Dinosaur is current, but not timely, and it is that distinction which makes it a comforting read.

We’re living in a time when almost all cultural criticism is inevitably tied to publicity. Press releases and movie releases and celebrity deaths dictate the direction of our conversation, and thus, reading something modern without any commercial context — other than book sales, of course — provides an escape from an almost mind-numbing amount of cultural reviewing. Reading about Nirvana without there being a peg to a new box set provides a very different type of feeling than if it did, and we’re in danger of losing out on that feeling completely. This is not to say that only Klosterman can write with that detached-from-the-Internet perspective, nor that writing on the Internet can’t achieve that level of broader analysis. But this is a book review, so I have to mention that this is what Klosterman has now achieved with his latest collection, and why his book is worth storing for later consideration as a marker in the past decade’s evolution.

As a fan and a critic, I was disappointed by the quality of the essays. Objectively, they’re less witty and insightful than they used to be, and the ones about sports are still as skip-able as ever (same goes for the ABBA one if you’re a sports fan). It’s interesting, though, how he doesn’t seem to give a shit — and he doesn’t have to, because he’ll get published anyway. This, at least, allows him to be more audacious in his critique of us, the readers, and us, the current society. “I don’t care. Go read a Vampire novel,” he quips at one point, aware that there’s a lot of bullshit out there that we all buy into, and that even if we’re also reading his “more acceptable” book, it’s all our fault. We’re the people who made Kurt Cobain into a God, which in turn made him suicidal; we’re the people who have made the lies in advertising into acceptable facts of life. But he’s one of them too, and that kind of makes it OK (but only kind of). It’s these subtle hints of fault that have always made his work interesting, and might be the only aspect of Eating the Dinosaur in which it surpasses the others.

As I suspect many Klosterman readers can identify with, his various books, columns, and in-store appearances over the past decade have corresponded to my various stages of youth: high school, college, first loves, graduation, and now, the harsh post-grad/employment reality. For those of us who were first introduced to him when we were young and he was young, and are now reading him when we’re older and he’s older (strange how that happens! Aging!), the book will make sense in the context of his trajectory. Even if some of the stages don’t correspond exactly (he’s now married!), the underlying sense that we’re all growing up together provides a more interesting hook to the book than if he had an essay about Miley Cyrus. It’s somewhat worrisome, however, that I wish he had tackled the topic — but what can I say, I’m not at all Pre-Blog.

Read what other reviewers are saying: NPR, Wall Street Journal, Entertainment Weekly, and The A.V. Club.

When we saw the paparazzi shots of you and Tina Fey filming a scene for 30 Rock, we hadn’t been that excited for the premiere of the real thing since the Sex and the City movie photos leaked (Syke! Those were annoying). Then when we watched the promo for your first appearance on the show, we died — actually — when you delivered the line “Sorry I smell like frosting. I just love to bake.” And when, finally, you came on to lure Liz Lemon with your ice cream maker and hot-doctor eyes, (Mad Men be damned) we hoped you’d stay forever.

But now you’re gone, and we’re almost OK with it — it was perfect while it lasted. You let Liz Lemon act like the crazy stalker woman anyone would inevitably turn into for you, and yet we still rooted for her. We loved the “bubble” plotline because it made the hot-or-normal divide both absurd and realistic, and we felt smart when your character didn’t use “ironic” correctly. Also: your motorcycle jacket.

Maybe you can come back in dream flashbacks? Kind of like how Jeffrey Dean Morgan is still on both Grey’s Anatomy and Weeds even though he’s dead? We didn’t think 30 Rock could get better and then you came along, so you should really come back. Not all guest stars are created equal (Salma Hayek seems to be phoning her performance in), and you’re definitely in the best guest star bubble. Maybe you can get Liz’s mail by mistake again? Pls? Thx. Until then, Flavorwire.

We agree with him in the political sense — there are so many real scapegoats on which to blame our economic problems now! — but their stories might come back into full focus in the cultural sense, as this year’s first international critical darling, Sin Nombre, gains momentum. Centered around a runaway Mexican gang youth and his Honduran girl companion as they seek to cross the border into the US, Sin Nombre — Sundance Lab alumnus Cary Joji Fukunaga’s directorial debut — has already won Best Director and Best Cinematography at Sundance [Read our original Sundance coverage of it here].

We’ve read mostly rave reviews (spoiler-free excerpts linked after the jump), and we’re excited for its limited release this weekend — produced by Mexican superstar-sweethearts Gael Garcia Bernal and Diego Luna, directed by a first-time feature-filmmaker, and promising to be a watchable un-glossy “immigration” tale (of which there aren’t many), it sounds like it could be a new favorite.

In the most positive sense, this is the quintessential Sundance movie, the sort of film that institute organizers might have dreamed about when they launched Sundance’s Latin American outreach years ago and began inviting a wide range of aspiring filmmakers to its labs. [Variety]

What keeps the movie from tipping into full-blown exploitation like “City of God,” which turns third-world misery into art-house thrills, is Mr. Fukunaga’s sincerity. What keeps you watching is his superb eye. [NY Times]

The Mexico-set socio-political thriller by Cary Joji Fukunaga that’s coming out this weekend (!) in limited release was a revelation of filmmaking and performances. It begat the question: “Where did this director come from!?” as one has to ask themselves this after picking themselves up the ground from being floored by this astonishing debut. [The Playlist]

Fukunaga’s characters don’t always make the right decisions, but they make believable ones in the heat of battle. With vivid, unflinching details, he finds a new angle on a story of sacrifice and peril you’ve heard countless times before. [International Herald Tribune]

This thriller/love story is, in a way, a simple one, though Fukunaga plays many emotional notes before he is finished, with sentiment that is restrained rather than indulged. [LA Times]

Taken out of context—or heck, even within context—Sin Nombre’s gorgeous widescreen panoramas of tired, poor, and huddled masses heading north by train through Central America and Mexico to the Texas border are stirring in the same way as those shiploads of immigrants approaching Ellis Island in America, America or The Godfather, Part II. [A.V. Club]

…So, if you’re looking for non-studio fare this weekend (Although Duplicity and I Love You, Man are both faring quite well on critic meters), Sin Nombre is a guaranteed good option.

Update: We just got this “letter” from Cary from the Landmark Theatres. We’re adding it to the post because it’s adorable.

Dear Film Club Members,

I would like to invite you to see my first feature film, Sin Nombre, about to face the world on screens across the country. All filmmakers will consider their films personal, and perhaps nothing is more personal than the first one. This film is even more personal to me in that I risked my neck to make it, literally.

I began working on this project in 2005, not long after my short film Victoria Para Chino (based on the tragedy in Victoria, Texas, where 19 immigrants died inside of a refrigerated trailer) received an Honorable Mention at the Sundance Film Festival. While researching the short, I had learned that thousands of Central American immigrants were crossing Mexico atop freight trains, facing a maelstrom of dangers, including bandits, gangs, corrupt police, and the constant threat of deportation back to their home countries. The images conjured up a post-industrial version of our own iconic Wild West, but instead of covered wagons it was a freight train, and instead of the classic Hollywood version of “the savages” it was marauding bandits and tattoo-covered gang members who seemed to have been pulled from general casting in Mad Max. And yet this wasn’t the Wild West; it was real and it was happening, is still happening, just south of our border. This was the story I wanted to tell.

I followed the first draft with two years of research in Mexico. I spent time with gang members in and out of prisons, interviewed immigrants from Nicaragua on up to the Texas border and, ultimately, traveled with hundreds of them from Tapachula in the south of Mexico to Orizaba, Veracruz. Together we experienced hunger, braved the weather and nights of hidden dangers, and grew to depend on one another. One particularly dark night in Chiapas our train was attacked by bandits; after several gunshots and screams of chaos, a Guatemalan immigrant lay dead—he did not want to give up the little money he had to make this journey.

In the scope of things, I only shared in these moments of danger briefly, while these immigrants had to continue facing this journey on their own. But what you’ll see onscreen in Sin Nombre is an homage to their true-life stories told from the perspectives of a young girl from Honduras, Sayra, on a journey to New Jersey with a father she hardly knows, and a young gang member, Casper, whose hope for a better life may be cut short by the gang that he once called his family. The two of them will change each other’s lives forever.

For you, the audience, I hope that Sin Nombre creates an experience that is both thrilling and emotional. I hope that you can walk out of the theater having seen through the eyes of these gang members and immigrants with a sense of connection that you wouldn’t have imagined possible. I also hope you just enjoy the film for simply being a good old-fashioned post-industrial Western tale of redemption.

All my best,
Cary Joji Fukunaga, writer/director