Filth and Wisdom.

"Considering that everything she does is subject to tabloid scrutiny, I can't help but respect the courage it took for Madonna to make, and then show to the public, a film as honest, unpolished, and staggeringly naive as Filth and Wisdom," writes Eric Hynes at indieWIRE. "In every respect the work of an amateur, this is I'll figure-it-out-as-I-go filmmaking, by turns exciting, tedious, disarming, and god-awful. By all accounts, Madonna approached Filth and Wisdom with appropriate degrees of humility, wonder, and experimentation - albeit with an actual budget and accomplished associates - and for all I know she's now set to make a mature film. But unlike the school kid or backyard Spielberg, her flawed first try is coming to a theater or VOD box near you. Somehow I think she'll persevere. And, unlike the vulnerable greenhorn she resembles here, she'll remain unscathed by reviews such as this one."

Updated through 10/17.

"Filth and Wisdom seems of a piece with her previous work, in that it's in some way about Madonna herself hiding behind borrowed aesthetics," writes Karina Longworth at the SpoutBlog. "Madonna gets the bulk of her borrowed essence from her star, Eugene Hütz, lead of gypsy punk band Gogol Bordello. The clumsy brilliance of Filth and Wisdom is the way it wraps material that's clearly personal to Madonna in the irresistibly goofy trappings of Hütz's Joe Strummer-of-the-Eastern Bloc persona and performance style. For fans of Hütz and his band, Filth has the makings of an instant music-movie classic."

"[T]here's an undeniably funky charm and abiding can-do spirit to this loose-knit portrait of three London flatmates trying to make their way in the world," finds Scott Foundas in Voice. "Message to the director: Don't quit your day job just yet, but in the category of multidisciplinary artists moonlighting as filmmakers, I'll take you over Julian Schnabel any day."

Anthony Lane has cleverly decided to review this one alongside RocknRolla, the new film from Guy Ritchie, who, as you may have heard, was married to Madonna as recently as Monday, when the current issue of the New Yorker appeared. Soon, as you may have heard, he won't be. At any rate: "What vexes me most about Filth and Wisdom is the economics. Madonna has been a global star for decades. She has amassed a fortune, much of which presumably remains intact. She can't have spent all of it on jodhpurs and conical bras. So why, when it came to launching herself as a film director, did she limit her budget to $365.23?"

"Some of this material has an offhand (if amateurish) charm, like a poor man's Me and You and Everyone We Know, but the script lacks focus, attempting to make an ensemble out of thin supporting characters," writes Jesse Hassenger in the L Magazine.

For IFC, Aaron Hillis sits down with Hütz "to yak about the film, politics, perversions and mustaches."

Brian Brooks profiles Madonna for indieWIRE.

To hear Matt Dentler tell it, the party after the premiere must have been something else.

Updates, 10/16: Online viewing tip. FilmCatcher talks with Hütz.

"In between some genuinely fun songs, Madonna and co-writer Dan Cadan treat the viewer to a cookie-cutter fairy tale plot and a series of sermons and sound bites from Hütz that sorely lack spontaneity and wit," writes Simon Abrams in the New York Press.

"[F]or all its narrative and aesthetic shortcomings, it's not half-bad," argues Nick Schager at Cinematical. "Certainly, Madonna tackles what she knows, which in this case is a collection of related stories linked by the overriding message that no profound knowledge can be attained without degradation first being experienced, a sentiment the Material Girl has been pushing in one form or another at least since 1992's Erotica and its infamous companion tome Sex. If embracing your inner skank is the path to enlightenment, then Madonna must now be the Dalai Lama. And yet despite the juvenile maxims spouted by Eugene Hütz... and the sometimes blandly functional cinematography by Tim Maurice-Jones, there's raggedy charm to this misshapen film, a genuine, enticing verve that helps overshadow the dull leadenness of Hütz-spouted platitudes like his title-explaining gem, 'Without filth, there is no wisdom.'"

"Here at the Screengrab," writes Phil Nugent, "we have an irregularly scheduled feature known as 'Forgotten Films,' which we use to discuss beloved, or at least interesting, movies that seem to have fallen through the cracks of moviegoers' memories. But what about those films that, while deservedly forgotten, will never be forgotten enough for some people's liking? Films that, in addition to sucking like a Hoover and a half, can only serve to represent the sore spots that their makers would much, much rather they'd never booked into theaters and charged admission? To inaugurate what we suspect will be an even more irregularly scheduled feature devoted to these very special films, today we exhume Guy Ritchie's Swept Away."

At the SpoutBlog, Christopher Campbell lists "10 Musicians-Turned-Filmmakers."

Updates, 10/17: "Filth and Wisdom is a ridiculously easy target, but it also creaks and strains with more ambition than most mainstream throwaways that just recycle the usual guns and poses," writes Manohla Dargis in the New York Times. "Not that Madonna has gone in for originality, which isn't really her thing: rather, instead of repurposing a genre, she has riffled through the art-house catalog for inspiration, as evidenced by the film's intentionally grubby visual texture, jumpy editing, direct-address commentary, freeze frames and other tricks. Although the somewhat rough visual style doesn't feel especially organic or natural for a director who has built a slick international brand with mind-blowing calculation, it does keep you interested from scene to scene, which is a more generous compliment than it might seem."

"There's an all-in-good-fun tone about Filth and Wisdom (which was written by Madonna and Dan Cadan) that means it never becomes actively disagreeable, although Madonna may not be as much in control of its jokiness, or its wistfulness, as she thinks she is," writes Salon's Andrew O'Hehir.

"To be generous, there's something touching about Madonna's commitment to tired Eurocinematic tropes; her movie is the furthest thing from corporate," writes Joshua Rothkopf in Time Out New York. "But for a world-famous icon, she's got a lot of living to do before film two."

"If [Madonna] needs to justify the Sex book by charting her own contrived path from filth to heavenly wisdom, that's fine," concedes Scott Tobias at the AV Club. "But she should do it on her own time."

Posted by dwhudson at October 15, 2008 2:35 PM