| Original Score: B- | Feb 18, 2012

| Original Score: 2/5 | Nov 17, 2011

Towelhead isn't a movie, it's a loaded gun.

| Aug 15, 2011

The discomfort zones of a young girl cry for sympathetic toughness, not Ball's snickering at pubic hair and clammy suburbanites

| Aug 26, 2009

A philosophy of the appeal of innocence and perversion in a repressed world...

| Original Score: 3/4 | Feb 9, 2009

Few may have paid attention during its theatrical run, but DVD should offer a whole new life to a smart, engaging film that genuinely has something worthwhile to say.

| Original Score: 4/4 | Dec 30, 2008

Towelhead makes "American Beauty" look like a quaint suburban drama.

| Original Score: 2/4 | Dec 26, 2008

As a director [Ball] amplifies the flaws in his own writing; his supporting characters are too broadly pitched to take seriously, and he tends to smack you in the face with the point of every scene.

| Dec 17, 2008

There is hardly a scene that does not produce exquisite discomfort and a strong desire to be somewhere else.

| Dec 11, 2008

Deftly sidesteps the muckraking and instead serves up an affecting drama about a lovely child who can't seem to catch a break from most of the adults surrounding her.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Nov 26, 2008

Ball drops the poisonous little voodoo dolls he mistakes for characters into a ... realistic environment, as though that will somehow render his story more "serious."

Full Review | Nov 12, 2008

It wasn't enjoyable at any level.

| Nov 5, 2008

This movie will challenge you on a number of levels, including some beliefs you'd never thought you'd question.

Full Review | Nov 5, 2008

An empty provocation that's about as classy and subtle as its title.

Full Review | Oct 28, 2008

It is a multicultural Lolita that searches for, but still manages to miss, any redemptive core its source material may boast.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Oct 24, 2008

It is certainly possible to make a transgressive movie about children in sexual jeopardy, and to do so in ways that realistically and intelligently depict the abuse while not revelling in it.

| Original Score: 1.5/4 | Oct 24, 2008

Ball knows how to fit his themes in seamlessly, weaving a charming, dark, funny, thoroughly entertaining parody of Americana.

| Original Score: B+ | Oct 18, 2008

It's impossible to look away.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4 | Oct 18, 2008

| Original Score: B- | Oct 18, 2008

Give Bishil props for a truly brave performance. Eckhart and Macdissi do what they can, as does Toni Collette as a concerned neighbor who tries to save Jasira from Eckhart. But the script isn't up to the actors.

| Oct 18, 2008