Movie Diary 7/20/2009

Adam (Max Mayer, 2009). Hugh Dancy as a grown man with Asperger’s Syndrome; Rose Byrne as the woman who tries to understand him. Mayer also scripted, and understands comic punctuation. (full review 8/21)

The Windmill Movie (Alexander Olch, 2008). A former student takes the life’s work of professor/filmmaker Richard P. Rogers and tries to make a biographical document out of it, possibly something like the autobiographical work Rogers wrestled to complete for 25 years. Rogers never got over being born privileged, but he’s so self-aware he realizes nobody’s going to feel sorry for a blocked artist with a house in the Hamptons. And you don’t, although it’s possible to pity someone whose narcissism is so profound it prevents him from moving along. The film will be shown at the Northwest Film Forum with Rogers’ early short Quarry, a beautiful black-and-white work that suggests what he might have done if he’d been able to get out of his own way. (full review 7/24)