SAVED! (2004)



In the Red and Blue State era, America often feels more like a pair of hostile side-by-side nations than a single group of United States, but this scrappy little indie by writer/director Brian Dannelly (and producer Michael Stipe...yes, THAT Michael Stipe!) does its part to bridge the divide by showing that maybe, just maybe, liberal elitists and conservative family values/assault weapon enthusiasts aren’t really so very different after all. Saved! tells the remarkably charming story of a bunch of very nice young people at a Christian fundamentalist high school trying to be as moral and decent as possible while grappling with questions of faith and the harsh realities of life. Naturally, many actual Christian fundamentalists hated it, but the cast (featuring undervalued charmers like Jena Malone and Patrick Fugit, a great comedic performance by Mandy Moore and a surprisingly likeable and sardonic turn by Macaulay Culkin) is the most likeable bunch of adolescents this side of Freaks and Geeks. The story is both highly respectful of religious belief and hilariously perceptive about the frequent disconnect between piety and common decency (not to mention the freshly topical disconnect between abstinence education and elevated teen pregnancy rates).

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John Turturro's third film as director, Romance and Cigarettes, got canned by its distributor and suffered some of the worst reviews around this year (even from some of my favorite outlets, like The Onion AV Club), as well as a handful of the best. Count me in the "best" category; I loved it and was lucky enough to interview Turturro about it, an experience that really cemented my admiration for him and his work. I'm not sure what other critics disliked about it so much, though I could see it being a movie you either love or hate. A blue-collar musical, it follows James Gandolfini through a torrid affair with Kate Winslet, and an estrangement from his wife (Susan Sarandon) and his daughters (Mandy Moore, Mary-Louise Parker and Aida Turturro). It's sweet, sad, hilarious and dirty — a great date movie, if your date has a good sense of humor.

Turturro has distribution rights to Romance and Cigarettes until January 17th, at which point Sony will ignominiously dump it to DVD and run for the hills. It's done really well given its limited distribution, but in this last push — well, I can't speak for my Screengrab colleagues, but at least a portion of Screengrab encourages you to see this lovely film before it leaves the screen. Here's a clip (illustrating Turturro's juxtaposition of bawdy humor and fantasy) I hand-picked to whet your appetites. (Right-click to save.) Hit the jump for a list of theaters opening Romance and Cigarettes in the coming weeks; it's also currently playing at a number of others, including, for New Yorkers, the Quad on 13th St.

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