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Click on the title for details. |
AUGUST 8 - AUGUST 14, 2006
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AUGUST 8 - AUGUST 14, 2006 |
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ADAM & STEVE (dir: Craig Chester, R) – Two gay dudes have a horrifically embarrassing one-night stand only to meet up years later and not recognize each other. Everyone’s favorite indie heroine Parker Posey co-stars. |
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^BRICK (dir: Rian Johnson, R) – Take the dialogue of a 1940s film noir and transpose the action to a modern SoCal high school and you have BRICK, the most audacious teen thriller in years. Joseph Gordon-Levitt from MYSTERIOUS SKIN continues to look like the best young actor in Hollywood as the Marlowe-esque Brendan, a hard-nosed kid investigating the death of an ex-girlfriend. | |||
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BRING IT ON: ALL OR NOTHING (dir: Steve Rash, PG-13) – When everyone on the squad gets a crushing case of the clap, they must band together and win the big cheerleading championship in order to use the prize money to keep their beloved free clinic open. |
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CAVITE (dir: Neill Dela Llana / Ian Gamazon, Not Rated) – This no-budget indie delivers enough thrills in its brisk 78 minutes to fill several bloated Hollywood action epics. Arriving in Manila for his father’s funeral, a young Filipino-American is thrown into a dangerous criminal web involving kidnappers, terrorism and maybe even a jihad or two. | |||
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C.S.A.: THE CONFEDERATE STATES OF AMERICA (dir: Kevin Willmott, PG-13) – As faithful readers of this newsletter may have noted, I’m not too keen on the glut of “mockumentaries” that have been showing up lately. I love THIS IS SPINAL TAP and BEST IN SHOW as much as anyone but most are not at that level. So I was pleased to discover this vicious satire purporting to be a Ken Burns-style history lesson for British television. It tells the history of The United States since The Civil War imagining that the South had won. Fairly brilliant. |
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DON'T COME KNOCKING (dir: Wim Wenders, R) – In their first collaboration since PARIS, TEXAS took its rightful place as one the greatest movies ever made, Sam Shepard and Wim Wenders turn in another thoughtful drama about second chances, set in the gorgeous backdrop of the American West. This time Sam Shepard wrote the screenplay and also plays the main character, a washed-up actor visiting his Montana hometown for the first time in thirty years. Jessica Lange, Tim Roth, Sarah Polley and Eva Marie Saint co-star. | |||
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GILLES' WIFE (dir: Frédéric Fonteyne, Not Rated) – Emmanuelle Devos gives an extraordinary performance as a put-upon wife in rural France who suspects her miner husband may be having it off with her younger sister. |
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THE HIDDEN BLADE (dir: Yôji Yamada, R) – Here’s another samurai epic from Yoji Yamada, the director of THE TWILIGHT SAMURAI. This one earned 12 Japanese Academy Award nominations for the powerful story of Munezo, a man betrayed by a lifelong friend who he vows to track down and kill. | |||
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I KNOW I'M NOT ALONE (dir: Michael Franti, Not Rated) – Michael Franti is the neo-hippie leader of the band Spearhead and outspoken proponent of most liberal causes. I’ve never liked his music much but have always found him to be an informed and interesting speaker. In this self-directed documentary he travels through Iraq, Palestine and Israel searching for the “human cost of war.” |
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*INSIDE MAN (dir: Spike Lee, R) – I don’t know about you, but I wasn’t holding my breath waiting for Spike Lee to start making crowd-pleasing Hollywood thrill rides. But that’s exactly what he’s done with this heist thriller that makes excellent use of its classy cast that includes Denzel Washington, Jodie Foster, Clive Owen and Willem Dafoe. | |||
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INTIMATE STORIES (dir: Carlos Sorin, Not Rated) – Set against the vast landscape of Patagonia, this Argentinean road movie finds three people on three very different journeys. An old man with failing eyesight hitchhikes in search of his lost dog, a businessman transports a birthday cake to his son and an impoverished woman travels to a game show hoping to win a prize. All roads inevitably lead to one another. |
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LARRY THE CABLE GUY: HEALTH INSPECTOR (dir: Trent Cooper, PG-13) – Hey, Larry. Sorry your first movie totally flopped at the box office. I guess you’ll have to go back to mining for vaguely racist, completely homophobic comedy nuggets at the bottom of whatever swamp you came from. | |||
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THE LAST MOGUL: THE LIFE AND TIMES OF LEW WASSERMAN (dir: Barry Avrich, PG-13) – Notable talking heads Larry King, Dominick Dunne, Jack Valenti and even Jimmy Carter are on hand to sing the praises of Hollywood heavyweight Lew Wassmerman, the man who charmed gangsters, union bosses and US presidents to become the most powerful man in the industry. |
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THE LOST CITY (dir: Andy Garcia, R) – Andy Garcia directs and stars in this ode to pre-Castro Cuba. He plays the owner of Havana’s swankiest nightclub who gets caught up in the 1958 revolution. Dustin Hoffman, Bill Murray and Elizabeth Pena also star. | |||
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MANDERLAY (dir: Lars von Trier, Not Rated) – If you’re a glutton for punishment, you’re probably psyched for Danish madman Lars Von Trier’s follow up to DOGVILLE and the second segment in his “American” trilogy. Nicole Kidman has been replaced by Bryce Dallas Howard and the story has moved from a mining town in Colorado to a plantation in Alabama, but the message is the same: America is corrupt and motivated by greed, racism and the misuse of power. Consider yourself warned. |
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SALOME (dir: Carlos Saura, Not Rated) – If you like Flamenco dancing, the bible and/or Spain you may be interested in this Spanish adaptation of the biblical story of Salome starring Flamenco dancer Aida Gomez. | |||
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SORRY, HATERS (dir: Jeff Stanzler, Not Rated) – Robin Wright Penn gives a career-best performance as a lawyer helping to free a wrongly imprisoned man, but with an agenda of her own, in this post-9/11 thriller. Sandra Oh and Elodie Buchez co-star. |
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ULTIMATE AVENGERS 2 (dir: Curt Geda / Steven E. Gordon, PG-13) – The second installment of Marvel’s gritty and not totally kid-friendly animated series introduces the Black Panther, who enlists the Avengers’ help to protect his small African nation from brutal alien invaders. | |||
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VOICES OF IRAQ (dir: People of Iraq, Not Rated) – Here’s the bad news: with no end in sight, the length of the war in Iraq has now surpassed our time in Korea and WWI, and is closing in on the length of our involvement in WWII. Which leaves the good news: it’ll be almost nine years before this war outlasts Vietnam. Here’s another documentary about Iraq. Bon Appetit. |
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WASABI TUNA (dir: Lee Friedlander, R) – I could probably get you to rent this just by telling you it’s the world’s first gangster/drag queen movie. But I’ll sweeten the offer and let you know that Anna Nicole Smith makes a cameo. | |||
| * = Greg's pick of the week ^ = Bart's pick of the week | ||||||