  Raised partly in Los Angeles, Kim’s a curious case of a
filmmaker with one foot in foreign cinema and the other planted
firmly in the US indie landscape, and “For Ellen,” which was
filmed in the wintry environs of upstate New York, has a
distinct sense of place. But the director is asking a lot of
audiences to accept Paul Dano as an egotistical hard-rock
singer. The actor specializes, often wonderfully, in tremulous
passive-aggressiveness, and he’s so pale and uncertain he haunts
his own movies like a ghost.  “For Ellen” asks us to buy him as
Joby Taylor, a tattooed train wreck who’s on the outs with his
bandmates and who drives into a small town to sign divorce
papers with a long-estranged wife (Margarita Levieva). From what
little we learn, Joby’s band had one successful album followed
by years of rancor; at best, he’s a demigod given to whining and
temper tantrums. When Dano throws a fit, though, he seems like
Axl Rose after a cold shower; there’s no weight to his fury.
Even the obligatory goatee seems g