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Click on the title for details. |
OCTOBER 31 - NOVEMBER 6, 2006
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OCTOBER 31 - NOVEMBER 6, 2006 |
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CLOSE CALL (dir: Jimmy Lee, Not Rated) – A teenage girl proves how mad she is at her Daddy by immersing herself in the four cornerstones of rebellion: sex, drugs, crime and rock n’ roll. |
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*DOWN TO THE BONE (dir: Debra Granik, R) – Vera Farmiga from THE DEPARTED first got some attention from critics in this unflinching look at drug abuse. She plays a young mother stuck in a loveless marriage and a bleak town who isn’t quite sure how to keep her demons at bay. | |||
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HEARTSTOPPER (dir: Bob Keen, Not Rated) – It probably would have made more sense to put out this psycho rampaging through a hospital fright flick a week or two before Halloween. |
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HUNGRY FOR MONSTERS (dir: George Paul Csicsery, Not Rated) – If you thought CAPTURING THE FRIEDMANS was a tad too upbeat, enjoy this documentary about the unraveling of a family due to abuse. | |||
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KEEPING UP WITH THE STEINS (dir: Scott Marshall, PG-13) – Jeremy Piven deserves every accolade he gets for ENTOURAGE, but that doesn’t excuse this lame dueling Bar Mitzvahs comedy. |
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MAXX (dir: Saman Moghadam, Not Rated) – It might take more than a passing familiarity with Iranian culture to get some of the jokes in this musical about a rapper who is confused with a similarly-named conductor, but it sure was a mega-hit in its home country. | |||
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^MEN AT WORK (dir: Mani Haghighi, Not Rated) – You just know Abbas Kiarostami had to have had his hand in this Iranian comedy about four men in a car. Turns out he’s the co-screenwriter of this latest Film Movement release. |
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MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE III (dir: J.J. Abrams, PG-13) – Tom Cruise, still 20% less insane than Mel Gibson! | |||
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MY FAMILY AND OTHER ANIMALS (dir: Sheree Folkson, Not Rated) – Imelda Staunton from VERA DRAKE and Matthew Goode from MATCH POINT star in this true story about a suburban London family who retreat to the sun-drenched Greek isle of Corfu in the days leading up to WWII. |
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PUNTO Y RAYA (dir: Elia K. Schneider, Not Rated) – A disastrous friendship develops between a Colombian soldier and a small-time Venezuelan drug dealer in this winner of numerous film awards including the grand prize at the Los Angeles Latino International Film Festival. | |||
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RAMPO NOIR (dir: Suguru Takeuchi / Akio Jissoji / Hisayasu Sato / Atsushi Kaneko, Not Rated) – This J-horror anthology film based on stories by Rampo (Japan’s Edgar Allen Poe) focuses on gore rather than substance. Try renting an installment of THREE EXTREMES instead. |
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THE RED SHOES (dir: Kim Yong-Gyun, Not Rated) – In this grisly horror film from South Korea, a pair of high heels seem to curse anyone who puts them on, causing the wearer to commit horrendous acts. Very loosely based on the fairy-tale by Hans Christian Andersen. | |||
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TRES PAJAROS (dir: Carlos Maria Jaureguialzo, Not Rated) – In this captivating Argentinean film, a young executive for a mining firm is sent to deal with some workers making trouble in a rural town and he finds that nothing in his city-dwelling life has prepared him to deal with the simple people he encounters. Things really take a turn for the worse when his cell phone loses service. |
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TWILIGHT (dir: Hassan Hedayat, Not Rated) – This rather deliberately paced policier from Iran stars the Marlon Brando of Persian Cinema, Ezzatollah Entezami, as a soul-searching 70-something police investigator. | |||
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WAGING A LIVING (dir: Roger Weisberg, Not Rated) – Latest in a long line of documentaries that exposes the injustices of The American Way to left-leaners who already know, this one follows four low-wage workers struggling futilely to free their families from the endless spiral of poverty. | |||||
| * = Greg's pick of the week ^ = Bart's pick of the week | ||||||