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Haim Tabakman’s new film Eyes Wide Open depicts, with seriousness and a slow intensity, the taboo homosexual relationship between an orthodox butcher and a young rabbinical student in a close-knit Jewish community in Jerusalem. But first, a few amazing and timely Brokeback Mountain jokes:

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If there’s one thing I’ve learned from every single writing class I took in college, it’s the importance of a good thesis statement. Putting the thrust, the motive, the idea of your piece right up at the top not only serves as a focal point for you, the writer, it also helps the reader understand what point you’re trying to get across in your work, and adequately judge whether you were successful in doing so. Along the way, you’ll also need points to either back up or refute your statement, citing specific examples. All that may seem obvious, but some filmmakers could learn a lot from a couple of remedial non-fiction writing classes.

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If there was an Oscar for “Most Cathartic Fingerbang By Jesus,” The Private Lives of Pippa Lee would have it locked down. Get past that, and the blatant general Oscar… Er… Baiting… By the rest of the cast, and you’ll find one of the Fall’s more engaging surprises.

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With its intertwining stories of family and the connections that bind and tear us apart, Swedish director Lukas Moodysson’s first English language feature evokes the work of any number of filmmakers, in particular Robert Altman (though some have also compared the film to the work of Guillermo Arriaga or Paul Haggis). That’s not to say, however, that Mammoth is derivative. The director creates his own scarily intimate look and feel, replete with naturalistic moments that alternate between sadness and laughter. Unfortunately, it’s the writer half of Moodysson’s profile that betrays him, particularly in the last reel of the film.

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How do you write a mostly negative review of a documentary about Holocaust survivors all getting together to celebrate life in a Catskills colony? You certainly can’t attack the subjects, there’s nothing honorable in that.

So maybe you could talk about the experience of seeing the movie at a screening, and cheekily talk about how the reviewer next to you stole your bottle of water while you weren’t looking, and drank it even though it was already half full. Clearly, he thought they were giving out free half bottles of water they had stored under each seat? And then how that same water stealing reviewer sat so close to you, you thought maybe he should have bought you dinner before the movie, if he really wanted to try and get to second base? Well no, you can’t talk about any of that, because other than making the viewing experience uncomfortable, it doesn’t reflect on the movie at all, so hardly works in a review.

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