Eighteen year-old Helen is an eccentric teenager whose views on sexuality, personal hygiene, and orderly behavior couldn't be farther than the norm.  Struggling with her parent's divorce, Helen spends most of her time with her friend Corinna, with whom she breaks every social taboo imaginable, as if to protest to the world her rebel status and disregard for convention.  After a shaving accident, Helen lands in the hospital, where she has plenty of time to focus on reconciling her parents.  It doesn't take long before Helen's rebel persona begins to make waves among the staff, with Robin, a male nurse, catching Helen's eye.  David Wnendt's Wetlands is one of most strange and unique films about teenagedom I've ever seen.  Very different than David Wnendt's previous film, Combat Girls, Wetlands is a much more visceral experience - full of energy and a playfull tone that is far different than the gritty realism of his previous effort.  Full of energy and stylish excess, Wetlands uses an over-the-top character like Helen to personify the rebellious nature that comes with being a teenager.  Wetlands is a film that is proud of its vulgarity, but what surprised me is the moments of tenderness it achieves even with its frenetic.  Underneath Helen's rebellious, sexually charged nature lies a young woman who is hurt by her parents separation, and Wetlands explores this to a degree, but it certainly takes a backseat to stylish indulgence.  David Wnendt's Wetlands is a perversely aggressive piece of film-making that's stylistically exhausting, capturing one of the most unique and repulsive young woman committed to celluloid in a long time. 

Carlos is one of the most prestigious tailors in Granada, Spain.  Meticulous in approach, he studies every detail in creating suits for his wealthy clientele, taking his profession very seriously.  Carlos has a dark secret, he's a cannibal, routinely carrying out murders in the shadows with the same precision and detail he puts into his tailor work.  When Nina, a beautiful young woman from Romania, comes looking for her missing twin sister, she awakens a side of Carlos he is unfamiliar with, a side of compassion and love.  Manuel Martin Cuenca's Cannibal is one of the most unique love stories out there, an impressive film that manages to create empathy for a man who deserves none.  Carlos is a monstrous man who shows no guilt or remorse for the people he has killed and through meeting Nina, a kind and woman of pure innocence, he begins to have feelings he struggles to comprehend.  Carlos isn't a man the audience ends up rooting for, but understands, feeling empathy for a man whose never had any real emotional relationship, keeping himself isolated from the world around him.  From a technical standpoint, the cinematography and lighting are exceptional, using heavy contrast between light and darkness in a way that emulates Carlos' internal struggle.  Consisting of a meticulously developed lead performance by Antonio de la Torre, Cannibal is a fascinating exploration of good vs evil that's as pensive as it's unique. 

Living in the Ile d'Yeu, a peaceful and isolated beach community off the Atlantic coast of France, Sasha, a young Englishwoman, is alone with her baby daughter.  Tatiana, a cynical backpacker, turns up on Sasha's doorstep, asking if she can pitch a tent in the backyard.  Sasha is wary but agrees, intrigued by the mysterious woman who seems to come from a very different background than her own.  The two woman build a rapport, with Tatiana's edginess generating sexual tension which inevitably leads to hostility.  Francois Ozon's See The Sea is subtlety effective thriller that slowly and emphatically builds up to its devastating conclusion.  Sasha and Tatiana couldn't be more different, with Sasha being the domesticated housewife-type and Tatiana being the rebel, but Ozon crafts this story in a way that shows how similar they truly can be.  Tatiana represents Sasha's repressed desires, being a free spirit whose never felt the shackles of a domestication but what unfolds in the climax of the film captures how the same could be said in reverse.  Through the course of the film it becomes apparent that something is truly wrong with Tatiana but Ozon never tips his hat completely, letting the film slowly build tension through its incredibly simple approach. Being under sixty minutes in length, Francios Ozon's See By The Sea is a simple and effective thriller that subtlety explores feminine roles in society. 

Always unhappy, agitated, and angry at the world around him, Henry Altmann has a Doctor's appointment where he is forced to wait for several hours.  Further agitated because of the delay, Henry lays into Dr. Sharon Gill, who is having a bad day in her own right, but when he is diagnosed with a brain aneurysm, he becomes even angrier at Sharon, demanding to know how much time he has left.  In a state of panic, as Sharon dodges Henry's vicious onslaught of anger, she abruptly tells him he only has 90 minutes to live.  Shocked by the news, Henry leaves the office in a hurry, intent on making amends with everyone in his life.  Phil Alden Robinson's The Angriest Man In Brooklyn isn't a very good film, being merely passable on both its comedic and dramatic intentions.  Henry is a man whose anger has consumed him after the death of his son, and while the film indulges in Robin Williams' unique talents, it's a very cookie-cutter examination of love, life and death that falls victim to sentimentalism.  Sharon Gill, as the second-lead character, is a strange and interesting character but she never really feels very necessary to the story, being merely used as an inciting incident but not bringing much to the story besides showcasing how everyone has the moments of suffering.  This is a film that wants to capture the everyday struggle many face in finding happiness but it's just not focused enough to achieve that.  Phil Alden Robinson's The Angriest Man In Brooklyn has good intentions but unfortunately it is never pensive enough, relying a little too much on over-sentimentality. 

Brad is a teenager who has fallen on the wrong side of the tracks.  Dealing drugs with his best friend, Gabriel, the two boys play a dangerous game with their futures.  One night, with his mother's consent, Brad is abducted from his home in the middle of the night and sent to a Youth Rehabilitation facility in the middle of the mountains.  Run by a veteran of the armed forces, Colonel Frank Reichert, this facility delivers a tough brand of discipline which is intent on breaking the wills of its subjects in order to correct them.  Vincent Grashaw's Coldwater is an intense, grim examination of juvenile detention centers that exposes the lack of regulations and accountability these facilities have to deal with.  Coldwater is made with a lot of anger for this system, showing the amount of violence that exists.  This is a film that argues that these facilities are not helping to rehabilitate anyone using these violent practices, only further conditioning such troubled youth into the belief that violence is power, a troubling comprehension for sure.   While Coldwater's message is important, the film comes off as far too manipulative and over-the-top at times, hammering home its message in a way that lacks almost all subtext.  Its message is incredibly clear but I wish the film would have had more three-dimensional characters outside of its main protagonist, which would strengthen the overall narrative considerably.  Vincent Grashaw's Coldwater is an intense film featuring strong performances, and while it beats the viewer over the head with its message a little too hard, it's a relatively powerful experience  

Andrew Droz Palermo & Tracy Droz Tragos' Rich Hill is an intimate look at small-town America through the eyes of three teenagers Andrew, Harley, and Appachey.  Rich Hill, Missouri is just a setting, one of many small towns in America's heartland that struggles with poverty and lack-of-opportunity, with the film's meticulous study of these three teenagers capturing the universal problems which plague these small towns.  The film chronicles these three boys lives, giving us insight into their family units and personalities but how the film captures the between-the-lines emotions is what stands out.  Almost un-beknowing to the boys themselves, much of their anger and angst stems from their feelings of isolation and instability in the family unit which makes adolescence a daily struggle.  Andrew is a very important subject in this film because he is the only one of the three boys that has both parental figures in his life.  He is the most even-keeled of the three, but even he can't escape the effect of the environment in which he lives.  Rich Hill isn't a bleak film but it certainly is sad, capturing how tough it is for anyone raised in such an impoverished area to make something of themselves.  The film does veer into sentimentality at times, but it never feels manipulative enough to distract.  Beautifully photographed with a great sense of visual lyricism reminiscent of Terrence Malick and David Gordon Green's earlier work, Rich Hill is an intimate and engrossing portrait of small-town America.  

On the night of an astronomical event, a comet passing close by earth, eight old friends get together for a dinner party in an effort to reconnect.  As they sit down to start dinner, the astronomical phenomenal sets off a bizarre serious of increasingly troublesome events.  James Ward Byrkit's Coherence is a sharp,mind-bender of a film that is never particularly brainy, but intelligent and focused.  It's a hard film to talk about without given away the basic conceit, but the film manages to deliver a lot of tense moments that firmly create a sense of uncertainty to its narrative.  The film is shot completely in the handheld and while its intricate and well designed, it does come off as a little detracting.  Coherence isn't defined easily by genre, having a sci-fi premise with horror elements but what makes it a good film is the human relationship drama that is much stronger than most films of this ilk.  The performances are all high quality making it fairly engrossing and a lot of fun. While I wouldn't say Coherence is a great film, it is certainly worth seeing because of its fairly original mind-bender concept.