Sins of the fleshapoids

The Exploding Girl

Crit

To the extent this works, it works on the soft, round, intelligent, vulnerable, funny-kind-of-beautiful face of Zoe Kazan, who plays an epileptic college student being dumped by her boyfriend and tentatively courted by her childhood friend. Which raises the question: To what extent does it work? Well, I cared about Ivy and, to a lesser extent, about her goofy pal Al (though I'm not at all convinced that they should try the romance thing), but I couldn't help wishing for some of the breakneck action characteristic of Mumblecore, which this resembles closely. Ultimately, this falls into the category Not a Complete Waste of My Time.

It Came from Kuchar

Crit

The funny thing about this is that the name Ed Wood is never mentioned. Such talking heads as John Waters, Buck Henry, Atom Egoyan, Guy Maddin, Cory McAbee, and Bill Griffith tell us why they love the weird, cheap, funny, troubling films of George and Mike Kuchar, but the only voices we really need to convince us are those of the twins themselves. (Identical or fraternal? That's just one of many questions about what makes them who they are that is apparently unanswerable.) A major hoot.