Up for the Count

The title's not great ("Half Nelson"). And a one-line summary of the film sounds like an after-school special ("White inner-city schoolteacher, who's an addict, finds friendship with a student.") But ignore all that, and see this movie. Do I dare say that this film, directed by Ryan Fleck, reminds me of John Cassavetes--if Cassavetes had a stern editor? Yes, I dare. Like "The Squid and the Whale," this movie's film image has a lot of grain, which I adore and takes me back to the '70s. And like Noah Baumbach's flick, emotions aren't conveyed through dialogue, but through acting and what isn't said.