Ballast

Like the film "George Washington" Ballast is a great film with a small budget. Beautiful scenery and credible acting by the cast of non actors. Give this film a chance.... Full review

Like the film "George Washington" Ballast is a great film with a small budget. Beautiful scenery and credible acting by the cast of non actors. Give this film a chance.... Full review

Another reviewer compared the technical making of this movie, the look of it to the Dogma style. You can say that, but it doesn't stop there. The story as it is, the pacing of the movie, the characters etc. are all... Full review

A movie about life after suicide can be very hard to depict, Ballast brings out the reality of life after suicide and the consequences of those actions. Filming in the South was excellent. The realness of what can happen after... Full review

First-time LA-based director Lance Hammer's powerful, naturalistic film seeks to capture what he sees as the prevailing sadness of the Mississippi Delta landscape through its concentrated portrait of a little black family torn by terrible grief and gradually struggling from... Full review

This is very much a modern American drama. Though issues such as drugs, gangs, broken family relations, violent poorly managed schools, unemployment, and financial breakdowns play a role in steering the lives of the principal characters, the primary emotion is... Full review

We saw this at Sundance 2008, and found it to be deliberately slow, but also quite thoughtful as it told the story of a man whose twin brother's suicide devastates him. The story extends to the dead man's ex wife... Full review

"Ballast," the debut feature directed by former special-effects artist Lance Hammer, is the cinematic equivalent of a miniature, a piece carved out of the stories of three troubled and damaged souls, and out of the culture and poverty of their small Mississippi Delta town. ... Full Review

the dramatic scenes....a little blunt in the writing....this gentle, patient picture's.... ... Full Review

Movie Review: 'Ballast' is a bleak but well-made indie They loved Ballast at Sundance. But, ironically, Ballast is by far the most serious and dramatically successful movie featuring blacks this season. ... Full Review

It's authentic filmmaking at its core and it was certainly a risk, but one that paid off big. It's authenticity is undeniable and is one hell of a testament to good storytelling. ... Full Review

At once a mystery, a family drama, a snapshot of children at risk, Ballast is an unusually perceptive character study more eloquent in action than in dialogue. No bells, no whistles, no special effects. ... Full Review

In Sunday's New York Times Magazine , A.O. Scott, a chief film critic for The Times, wrote a feature called "Neo-Neo-Realism," about a new movement in independent filmmaking epitomized by movies like "Wendy and Lucy" (directed by Kelly Reichardt ),... ... Full Article

While an unsteady global film industry has budding filmmakers worried about their futures, there's never been a better time to develop their craft. From Sundance's Labs to Berlin's Talent Campus to Cannes' Cinefondation, nowadays most major film festivals have some... ... Full Article

It used to be that Sundance acclaim meant the kiss of death for its recipients. The 2008 Oscar nominations may signal the end of that curse. ... Full Article

Posted: Jan. 22, 2009 5:25 p.m.What was once a bust has become a boom.The economy should be so resilient.One of the low points of the 2008 movie year was the crash of the independent film scene. ... Full Article

The Cricket adds his full endorsement to this, a thoughtful commentary by Kim Voynar at Movie City News that tears down the notion that movie critics should go easy on low-budget independent movies. ... Full Article

Let The Right One In Whereas Twilight was a teen romance gussied up in goth-mallrat chic, this gaunt Swedish take on vampire love was a different beast altogether. ... Full Article