Email Author Nick Schager

2012 Stories by Nick Schager

• Redlegs: A Narcissistic Spectacle of Male Grief

  published May 23, 2012

  A narcissistic spectacle of male grief, Redlegs charts the reunion of three twentysomething friends (two white and one Colombian) in... More >>

• The Samaritan

  published May 16, 2012

  'Nothing changes unless you make it change," intones recently paroled grifter Foley (Samuel L. Jackson) in The Samaritan, a repeated... More >>

• You Are Here

  published May 9, 2012

  Devoid of a traditional tethering narrative, You Are Here tackles philosophical questions about the relationship between technology and... More >>

• Small, Beautifully Meaningful Parts

  published May 9, 2012

  Yet another indie examination of humanity's escalating technophilia, Small, Beautifully Moving Parts addresses its oh-so-contemporary... More >>

• First Position

  published May 2, 2012

  The nonfiction formula pioneered by Spellbound leads to frustrating superficiality in First Position, a glossy documentary about... More >>

• Booker's Place: A Mississippi Story

  published April 25, 2012

  Racism, rebellion, and filmmaking ethics intertwine in Booker's Place: A Mississippi Story, a documentary by Raymond De Felitta that... More >>

• Warriors of the Rainbow: Seediq Bale

  published April 25, 2012

  It's not clear what Warriors of the Rainbow: Seediq Bale values more—endless preaching about ancestral spirits or gruesome CG... More >>

• Snow on tha Bluff

  published April 18, 2012

  Synthesizing fact and fiction, Snow on tha Bluff details the day-to-day misadventures of fast-talking dope-slinger Curtis Snow, a... More >>

• The Moth Diaries

  published April 18, 2012

  There's no surer way to murder horror than to literalize it, a mistake incessantly made by The Moth Diaries. At a ritzy remote boarding... More >>

• Downtown Express

  published April 18, 2012

  There's no one quite as domineering as a daddy with a dream for his son, a situation that leads to standard-issue rebellion in Downtown... More >>

• Inside Hana's Suitcase

  published April 18, 2012

  A documentary saga of heartbreaking concentration-camp horrors, Inside Hana's Suitcase attempts to preserve Holocaust memories... More >>

• Last Will and Embezzlement

  published April 11, 2012

  Given the overarching structural messiness that defines its examination of elder financial abuse, the only thing Last Will and... More >>

• Life, Love, Soul

  published April 11, 2012

  Admirable only for its sincere responsibility-over-selfishness message and for giving The Wire alums Chad Coleman and Jamie Hector some... More >>

• Player Hating: A Love Story

  published April 4, 2012

  In Brooklyn's Crown Heights projects, death is everywhere, a fact addressed with compassion if not quite analytical depth in Player Hating:... More >>

• Artificial Paradises

  published March 28, 2012

  Artificial Paradises is the elegiac tale of two mismatched Mexican souls at a rundown beach resort who search for a bit of utopia... More >>

• Convento

  published March 7, 2012

  A fertile portrait of the creative marriage between the organic and inorganic, Convento gazes reverentially at the mad-scientist designs... More >>

• Let the Bullets Fly

  published February 29, 2012

  With a title like Let the Bullets Fly and a star like iconic Killer assassin Chow Yun-fat, it's not unreasonable to expect more... More >>

• Black Butterflies

  published February 29, 2012

  Art, politics, and craziness conspire to form a rather mechanical melodrama in Black Butterflies, the true-life tale of famed 1960s... More >>

• Heist: Who Stole the American Dream?

  published February 29, 2012

  Like its title, Heist: Who Stole the American Dream? purports to ask a question but is only interested in forwarding its predictable... More >>

• Bad Fever

  published February 1, 2012

  The shaky handheld cinematography might be conventionally modern, but from its opening white-letters-on-red-background credit sequence to its... More >>

• Watching TV With the Red Chinese

  published January 18, 2012

  "The medium is the message," opines a blowhard film director in Watching TV With the Red Chinese, a series of hodgepodge montages that... More >>

• Loosies

  published January 11, 2012

  Loosies has a bevy of colorful character actors—from Michael Madsen and William Forsythe to Vincent Gallo and Joe... More >>