reviews

The latest review posted at imdb.com:

"Cerebral Kevin Smith", 9 September 2006Author: psychomatronic from United States

Okay, maybe the summary isn't how everyone would take this film, but for me, the Black and White photography echoed that of CLERKS while the dialog seemed very Smith-like.Vic (Alex Cole, who looks very much like he could be Al Franken's brother) is a sarcastic, mean spirited guy who spends his time selling Sci-Fi collectibles at a flea market, verbally abusing most anyone he comes in contact with, and trying to discover signals from extraterrestrial beings. One day, he crosses paths with Cathy (played expertly by Catherine E. Johnson) , another seller at the flea market. She sells cloth dolls and seems slightly naive, but very sweet. At first, he treats her with his usual banter, but something about her softens him up a bit.As their friendship grows, Vic becomes convinced of a link between Cathy and the extraterrestrials.

Without giving anything away, let's just say the film takes a turn that I was not expecting.I viewed this film at the River's Edge Film Festival in Paducah, Kentucky and it was, hands down, one of the best there. James Vculek shows that he has a great gift for writing, especially allowing us to believe and identify with the characters, even if we don't necessarily like them (refering to Vic). The understated, amateurish acting actually makes the characters more believable. Emotionally, this film took me for a ride, which is very difficult for a low budget film to do. It just goes to show you that it's not the budget or the presence of big names that makes a film engaging, it's the STORY and the CHARACTERS, both of which this TWO HARBORS is rich with.

If I had to pick one word to describe the true theme of the movie, that would have to be, "obsession." TWO HARBORS is still showing at festivals and I hope that a distributor will pick it up and give it a decent release, even if only on DVD. It is just too good a film to fall through the cracks of the festival circuit.If anyone is interested in buying a copy of this film, check out http://www.indieflix.com/FilmDetail.aspx?tid=2267.



Can't decide whether to see "Two Harbors" at the Austin Film Festival, because, well, you've never heard of it? Here's some help from people who have:

from the AFF preview at www.stomptokyo.com:

"'Two Harbors' (competition feature) – This one is a little rough around the edges but it's actually one of my favorite pictures (of the ones I've seen during screenings) so far. It centers around a flea-market action-figure dealer who is on a personal crusade to locate extraterrestrial intelligence, and the young woman who begins selling dolls in a nearby stall. She's a little lost in life and quite possibly deranged, but they strike up an unsteady friendship – until he starts to receive signals on his home satellite rig whenever she's around. Contains one of the best demonstrations of "collectible" supply and demand I've ever seen. Director James Vculek in attendance."


from the Minnesota Daily:

"'Two Harbors' is an unusual, engaging and ultimately beautiful expression."


from the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Film Festival program:

"A remarkable performance by Alex Cole anchors this strange and subtle tale."


from Minneapolis City Pages:

"The film employs a bleak black and white ambience to tease out the inscrutable despair beneath little lives spent in a little place, applying moments of humor and sweetness to make it a uniquely genre-ignoring exercise."


from the Minneapolis Star Tribune:

"A darkly comic love story involving junk stores and extraterrestrials that takes two or three weird hairpin turns from realistic comedy to surreal humor to tragedy. The performances are stellar. Alex Cole, the lead actor, is phenomenal, and his co-star, Catherine E. JOhnson, is great with him."


from Minneapolis-St. Paul International Film Festival Executive Director Jamie Hook:

"'Two Harbors' took the top prize [Best Feature, Emerging FIlmmaker] because it had the strongest writing and acting."

from an imdb.com review:

Wow! Way better than I expected., 7 April 2006Author: Ace_of_Sevens from Cedar Rapids, IA, USA
I caught this movie at the Cedar Rapids Independent Film Festival. It's one of the better movies I've seen in a while. I hope someone picks this up and I very much want to buy it. It is the story of a grumpy middle-aged seller of antique action figures, Vic, who meets a sweet, very vulnerable young woman, Cassie, who sells dolls in a booth in the same center. He has been trying for years to catch the notice of extra-terrestrials, apparently because no one down here notices him and she goes along with it because she has the same problem. It was at once funny and tragic. It does a great job of making its two major characters very real, despite their general bizarreness and likable, despite Vic's abusiveness to almost everyone he meets. It's not perfect, but it's about as close as you can get for a movie made for so little money. The fact it was a first film for the writer/director makes it all the more amazing. The hope of finding something like this is the reason I go to independent film festivals. Buy it if it ever comes to DVD.