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Click on the title for details. |
JUNE 6 - JUNE 12, 2006
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JUNE 6 - JUNE 12, 2006 |
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THE BIG WHITE (dir: Mark Mylod, R) – Robin Williams and Holly Hunter star in this black comedy about murderous travel agents in Alaska. Why this skipped the theater and landed directly on DVD we’ll never know. |
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THE BOYS OF BARAKA (dir: Heidi Ewing / Rachel Grady, R) – Twenty “high-risk” boys from inner city Baltimore win scholarships to an experimental school in Kenya in this touching documentary that won awards at nearly every film festival at which it was screened in 2005. Get ready to be inspired! | |||
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FIREWALL (dir: Richard Loncraine, PG-13) – Geriatric action hero Harrison Ford rubs on some Aspercreme and battles criminal mastermind Paul Bettany, who has made the unfortunate decision of kidnapping Harry’s family. Go Gramps! |
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FOR THE CHILDREN (dir: Yazhou Yang, Not Rated) – In rural western China, a peasant founds a school with the hope of giving the local children opportunities for a better life. A cultured volunteer teacher arrives from Beijing to help and the two women discover they have a lot to teach each other as well the kids. Get ready to be inspired! | |||
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GAY SEX IN THE 70S (dir: Joseph Lovett, Not Rated) – Talk about truth in advertising. This documentary chronicles the period from the Stonewall riots in 1969 up until the onslaught of AIDS in the early 80s. What fell between was the opening of a cultural floodgate that saw oppression turn to excess and shame turn to pride. |
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GLORY ROAD (dir: James Gartner, PG) – True story. Underdog sports team. Racial conflict. Josh Lucas. Get ready to be inspired! | |||
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*THE HEART IS DECEITFUL ABOVE ALL THINGS (dir: Asia Argento, R) – Asia Argento, one of the most exciting and, without a doubt, craziest women working in front of and behind a camera today takes on the memoir of J.T. Leroy, who has now been outed as a literary hoax. That doesn’t stop a cast including Peter Fonda, Michael Pitt, Winona Ryder, Marilyn Manson and Ornella Muti from camping it up with the story of truck stop whores, cross dressing pre-teens and religious fanatics. |
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LESBIANS OF BUENOS AIRES (dir: Santiago Garcia, Not Rated) – Here’s another documentary with a penchant for truthfulness in its title. It does indeed chronicle the lives of three “lesbians of Buenos Aires” as they struggle to assert their identities in a culture that wants them to remain invisible. | |||
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PREACHING TO THE CHOIR (dir: Charles Randolph Wright, PG-13) – Two brothers who have taken radically different paths in life (one’s a minister, the other a rap star) are reconciled when the rapper returns home to Harlem to hide from an enraged record producer. With appearances by Eartha Kitt, Ben Vereen, Patti LaBelle and Mr. Eko from LOST, and Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje. |
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RUNNING SCARED (dir: Wayne Kramer, R) – Paul Walker, the actor who brought such gravitas to films like THE FAST AND THE FURIOUS and SHE’S ALL THAT, stars in this Tarentino-esque thriller that apparently “makes KILL BILL look like SESAME STREET.” | |||
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STRAIGHT INTO DARKNESS (dir: Jeff Burr, R) – In the waning days of WWII, a couple of AWOL American soldiers band together with some feral orphans to fight some pesky Nazis. Moving from straight ahead war movie to horror film and finally to something resembling a TWILIGHT ZONE episode, this is not really what you’d expect from the director of THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE 3, PUMPKINHEAD 2 and PUPPET MASTER 4. |
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THE SYRIAN BRIDE (dir: Eran Riklas, Not Rated) – On her wedding day, an Israeli woman experiences mixed emotions because once she crosses the border to be with her Syrian husband, she can never return home. | |||
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^THE THREE BURIALS OF MELQUIADES ESTRADA (dir: Tommy Lee Jones, R) – Tommy Lee Jones makes a nifty directorial debut with this modern offbeat Western. He plays a veteran cowboy whose ranch hand and friend, Melquiades Estrada, is shot dead under mysterious circumstances. Kidnapping the man he holds responsible, he forces him to accompany him and the body on horseback through the harsh Mexican landscape to Melquiades’s birthplace for a proper funeral. |
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UNDERWORLD: EVOLUTION (dir: Len Wiseman, R) – Kate Beckinsale is back in this thinly veiled ode to yiffing. Vampires and Werewolves battle for control of the planet, Kate wears a lot of tight leather and Derek Jacobi wonders how he got from the National Theatre to here. | |||
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WHO THE HELL IS PETE DOHERTY? (dir: Roger Pomphrey, Not Rated) – If you think Eric Clapton throwing his kid out a window was the ultimate rock star excess, you obviously haven’t been reading the British tabloids lately. Pete Doherty, the heroin licking, crack-cocaine injecting, Kate Moss defiling mad poet of modern London barely goes a day without causing some sort of fuss. Enjoy the fun as he passes out on camera, kicks the camera, throws wine at the camera and spouts a lot of rambling nonsense. Watch it before he dies! Which is due to be any day now. |
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YOM YOM (dir: Amos Gitai, Not Rated) – A series of 8 minute shots comprise this look at the life of two childhood friends in an Israeli harbor town. Amos Gitai is Israel’s most famous director, having helmed KADOSH and DEVARIM, and this film contains what is widely considered that country’s hottest sex scene ever. | |||
| * = Greg's pick of the week ^ = Bart's pick of the week | ||||||