About Time

This film might still be playing somewhere, perhaps as a second run. Although About Time takes a somewhat serious premise, it is mostly a lighthearted romantic comedy as well as family drama.

The main character Tim (Domnhall Gleeson) is told by his father (Bill Nighy) that on his 21st birthday he acquires a family power carried by the men in the family. He can return to the past of his own life and if he chooses, make changes. At first we see Tim, being a young man, using this power for what young men have their mind most on--trying to find the right girl. In fact, we see Tim trying again and again to fix and refix his life so that his romance with a woman he meets by chance at a restaurant, Mary (Rachel McAdams), happens with the maximum happiness. But Tim is cautioned by his father that what he changes in the past can change things in the present, for himself as well as for others, so Tim has to be careful how big the changes are. There are plenty of meet-cute moments and romantic-cute moments as Tim often excuses himself so he can go into a dark room (a requirement of the power) to re-fix events.

Later the film gets more serious as Tim sees almost too late that his messed up sister has screwed her own life up, and he tries to help her without, as cautioned before, screwing up events that could be unbuilt by his changes. Tim gets some life lessons from his father (Bill Nighy) who counsels him on whether to live in the moment or try to return to happy times again and again.

Past seven days

A semi-break from work next week means I'll be at home with lots of stuff to watch! In the meantime, here are the last seven days:

The Avengers
Colossus: The Forbin Project
Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom
My Name is Bill W.

Saving Mr. Banks

Being both a Disney film and a Tom Hanks film, you know there are not going to be any negative revelations about the iconic Walt Disney. The period is when Walt Disney (Tom Hanks) was trying to convince the author of the Mary Poppins books to allow him rights to make a movie about the character. He's promised things like no animation, and since we know now that there WAS animation, we wonder how he got away with it.

P.L. Travers (Emma Thompson) has been fending Disney off for a couple decades but for some reason this time has allowed herself to be coerced to a face-to-face meeting with him in L.A., most probably because her royalties for the books have faded and she needs money to keep up her home and lifestyle.

She is very protective of the characters in the book and you see why in some flashbacks. As a child in Australia, she was very close to her father (Colin Farrell) who, while he was a loving husband and father, was not a very responsible wage-earner, and he fell to drinking heavily which was his downfall. He was the one who stoked her imagination, although in the adult Mrs. Travers you see little evidence of any joy or whimsy. Although she insists on final approval, the film is pretty much written and planned to Disney's specifications and he believes it is more a matter of convincing her, rather than her idea that she will review the script, change it, then sign on the dotted line. Throughout Mrs. Travers' prickly meetings with Disney and his creative team, you come to see that the characters in the book are based on her family, which she never states openly. In bits and pieces, the guys win her over, although I don't know if they were astute enough to realize her personal connection to the characters (although Disney finally does).

Past seven days

I got to see some films that are not yet out, some opening in a couple days, others not until the new year. Have fun at the movies!

August: Osage County
Beasts of the Southern Wild
Chicago Drawbridges
How to Murder Your Wife
The Kind With a Bike
Saving Mr. Banks
A Serious Man

Past seven days

Caught up on some old tv by re-watching Fringe season 3 during the holiday break, but still have to tackle 4 and 5.  In the meantime, I checked out a couple sequels and a new movie by Spike Jonze:

Her
Hunger Games: Catching Fire
Thor: The Dark World

Past seven days

Gearing up for the holiday weekend, but it was a pretty full week of movies.  Happy Thanksgiving to you!

The Big Lebowski
Dallas Buyers Club
Inside Llewyn Davis
Kuroneko (A Black Cat in a Bamboo Grove)
North By Northwest
The Reivers
The Secret Life of Walter Mitty (2013)
Singin' in the Rain
Standing Silent Nation
Strangers in the Night
A Touch of Sin

Personal Services

I think the British do this sort of comedy well (although there are dramatic elements in the story too). This is a slightly odd movie and perhaps not for all tastes due to its plot and main character (and the poster!)  It is inspired by the real life story of a famous English brothel owner, here played by Julie Walters, but not a biopic. (She is the only actor I really know in this one.)

At first we see Christine works as a waitress but also tries to make some money on the side by renting out several of her apartments to prostitutes. This is not working so well as since the working women are not paying her, she is herself owing money to her landlords. Christine’s apartments run from the seedy to the glamorous. She also at times will give sex to pay a debt. She does all this to be able to afford a good school for her son, being a single parent, as well as trying to live up to her family's expectations, who have always thought less of her. (One would consider her low class or common.)

When Christine's money troubles become too much, she kicks out her prostitutes and goes into business for herself, making a niche business by catering to the slightly kinky tastes of middle-aged husbands and businessmen. Although Christine is open to sex with strangers for money, she is a bit of a novice, not knowing for instance some slang terms for certain sex acts. She and a couple of middle-aged waitress friends continue to do this until she becomes so successful as to afford to buy her own house where she continues to serve these sorts of men, until the law catches up with her.

The Book Thief

The new film The Book Thief doesn't focus too much on the war and Nazi stuff, although World War 2 is its setting.  Instead the main character is a young girl whose life is disrupted by the war, bringing her to a new community where she finds acceptance.  

In 1938, Liesel (Sophie Nelisse) is adopted out to a couple, Hans and Rosa (Geoffrey Rush, Emily Watson).  It seems that her mother cannot afford to take care of her and her brother anymore.  During the train ride to her new home, her brother dies, which perturbs Rosa as she doesn't consider Liesel very valuable on her own (that is my impression although the film doesn't really say).  The couple are poor--Rosa takes in washing and Hans does sign painting when there is some.

Liesel, who is illiterate, is picked on at her new school but befriended by her schoolmate/neighbor Rudy.  He instantly falls for her.  Liesel insists that being illiterate does not mean she is dumb and we can see she is canny about what she says and observes a lot.  Rosa is a bit prickly with Liesel at first, but as the film goes on, warms up to her as the girl lives with them for several years, calling them mama and papa.  Hans is more nurturing and gentle, and sees that Liesel cannot read, so takes a roundabout approach to help her without making her feel embarrassed.  This awakens in Liesel a desire to read as much as she can.

Elsewhere, a young Jewish man Max (Ben Schnetzer) escapes being rounded up by German soldiers, as his mother sacrifices so he can escape.  Because Hans owes Max's family a great moral debt, he hides Max in Liesel's room, then in the basement, where Hans has painted alphabets on the walls to encourage Liesel's education.  She and Max share an affinity for the poetry of words.

A local politician's wife sees Liesel steal a book and when Rosa sends some laundry via Liesel to this customer, instead of being outed by her as a book thief, the woman invites Liesel to read in her private library whenever she likes.

Past seven days

Busy with other things this week so not a lot of movie watching...did manage to catch a few new ones though.

About Time
Hello, Herman
Nebraska
Philomena

Past seven days

Catching up mostly on Sunday made for a decent one-movie-per-one-day week

Charlie Countryman
Evidence
Fred Won't Move Out
Hunky Dory
In the Light of Reverence
Patton Oswalt: Finest Hour
The Search (Father's Chair)

Charlie Countryman

Shia LaBeouf plays Charlie, a young man whose mother has just died (Melissa Leo, and Vincent D'Onofrio is the stepdad, they are hardly in the movie). He has a vision of his dead mother who tells him to go to Bucharest to assuage his grief, and he does so on a whim. On the plane he meets a zestful Romanian man who tells him of his daughter, and he dies on the flight, leaving Charlie to track the daughter down, Gaby (Evan Rachel Wood). Charlie is instantly taken with her (and they also share the recent death of a parent) and is caught up in her messed up life and the crazy things that happen to him while he is in Bucharest.

Gaby is separated from her abusive and violent husband, Nigel (Mads Mikkelsen), whom she found out, after they married, was a drug dealer. Charlie by chance meets Nigel's cohort at a strip club and learns of a videotape showing them doing something illegal, which is what Gaby's father has used to keep Nigel away. But now that the father is dead, Nigel comes back to claim Gaby despite Charlie trying to unbind her from his clutches. In the several days he is here, he is always trying to save her or find a way to keep her out of Nigel's grasp.

Past seven days

The Chicago International Children's Film Festival has ended.  I was able to catch a bunch of short films and I think just one feature, an animated movie.  There were some pretty good short documentaries with many issues facing kids of all cultures and economic status.

All Passion Spent
The Book Thief
Children Who Chase Lost Voices
The Day That Lasted 21 Years
Dog Soldiers
Family 4 Ever short film program
Green Butchers
Jolene
My Life as McDull
Outlook: Asia short film program
Shape Shifters short film program
Walachai
What's Cookin' short film program

Management

A long time ago there was an afterschool special-type movie on TV about the dangers of hitchhiking. A teen girl hitchhiking alone was raped, and subsequently the guy got off because she was dressed "provacatively."

This movie begins with a similar concept although the outcome is definitely different, as it is a romantic comedy. Jennifer Aniston is a traveling saleslady Sue, selling cheesy corporate/hotel art, and stays at Mike's (Steve Zahn) motel. He finds her attractive, but doesn't really know how to approach her so pretends to give her a motel welcome gift of wine which for some reason she shares with him. This happens again the next night, and after Mike expresses how attractive her behind is, Sue allows him to cop a feel. Ugh!

So based on this vaguely creepy meet-cute, Sue returns home and Mike has misguided feelings so that he pursues her several times, despite her returning to her ex-punk rocker boyfriend Jango (Woody Harrelson). Jango's rich but I don't see what else she sees in him. It boils down to Sue wanting the safe life over apparently true love.

Mike then goes on a spiritual quest to forget Sue but there is little doubt how this story is going to end.

Past seven days

I think I've said previously, there is a film festival catering to almost any interest. Here in Chicago we have the usual fests focusing on a certain foreign region, such as the European Union, Israel, or South Asia, but also topics like food, bikes, comedy shorts, or the LGBT community.

This week I am catching a few screenings at the Chicago International Children's Film Festival.  The line-ups are mostly short films that are collected into various age ranges, with those for younger audiences screened earlier in the day.  I'm pretty impressed with some of the short documentaries in some of the programs for older kids and teens.

Edgy Animation shorts
Ender's Game
5 Broken Cameras
Family Pass shorts
Fresh Faces, New Places shorts
Higher Ground shorts
Inside Llewyn Davis
Intercom
The Matrix
Off the Grid shorts
Two Way Street shorts

Horror-ble! My Soul to Take

It seems horror movies have a niche to fit every kind of terror. Nightmares, devil dolls, monsters--you name it, someone has made a movie about it.

My Soul to Take is a bit less niche than most. It was billed as horror icon Wes Craven's first 3-D movie. Its general plot involves several people who are killed one by one, leaving you to question who the killer is.

Sixteen years ago a schizophrenic killer (Raul Esparza) was threatening the small town where the film takes place. On the night when his child is born, he goes on one final spree and is involved in a car crash. But no body was found. On that same night, several other babies are born, and 16 years later it is rumored one of them, including the man’s son, has inherited his soul and begins terrorizing the town again.

The film’s action throughout implies that one of the kids has been possessed by the supposed dead man, so leaves many red herrings around as to 1) if the man really died to begin with, and 2) which kid is possessed and is a new killer. Each of the seven kids born on that earlier night, including the son, are in turn suspected but killed until there are just two at the end with a showdown. Along for the ride is the son’s half-sister, and she factors in on some of the action.

Horror-ble!: The Hands of Orlac

This is a silent 1924 horror film directed by Robert Wiene.  Orlac (Conrad Veidt), a famous pianist, is maimed in a tragic train accident. At the same time, the convicted murderer Vasseur is to be executed. When Orlac's hands cannot be saved, despite the pleading of his anguished wife (Alexandra Sorina), the doctor replaces them with Vasseur's hands, unbeknownst at first to everyone.

When Orlac finds out the source of his hands, he is of course plagued by this and even afraid to touch his wife now with those murderous hands. Some new crimes are committed where Vassuer's fingerprints are found, but that seems impossible because Orlac now owns those hands. But Orlac sleepwalks, and since the hands have a mind of their own, he is fearful that he is the culprit.

Meanwhile there is a mysterious man plotting against Orlac. He blackmails Orlac for money in order to keep quiet about the hands and Orlac's suspected commission of the new crimes. His identity is revealed, then revealed again, and we question just how much Orlac was guided by the hands.

Past seven days

The last of my film fest schedule as well as a few other first runs and DVDs.  It was a pretty busy seven days!

CIFF After Dark Panel
Black Rock
The Burning Sunlight
CIFF Cineyouth
I Will Be Murdered
Like Father, Like Son
CIFF Meet the Critics Panel
Mothers
Murder: Take One
Of Good Report
The Priest's Children
Shorts Program: Cel Division
Shorts Program: Midnight Mayhem
Shorts Program: Our Lovers' Story
Silent Films: Louder Than Words
Soul
A Thousand Times Goodnight
Voyage
Wolfschildren
Workers

Past seven days

The film festival is in full swing for me but I still managed to squeeze in more than a few extras.

Big Bad Wolves
Borgman
CIFF Documentary Panel
Domestic
An Evening with Barry Gifford
Golden Chicken
Golden Chicken 2
Gravity
Illiterate
Just a Sigh
Lad: A Yorkshire Story
Life Feels Good
CIFF Out-look Panel
Pioneer
Pulling Strings
Rush
Salt (documentary)
Tanta Agua

Horror-ble!: [REC]

Is a remake usually better than the original? The Spanish language film [REC] was remade as Quarantine for the U.S. market.

[REC] continues in the recent horror trend of found video footage (started by The Blair Witch Project I think). In this scenario, the story begins innocuously when a soft-news tv reporter follows some firefighters overnight. The reporter, Angela, hopes to get some exciting footage although the firemen tell her most days it is just waiting around. A call does come in though, a report of an elderly woman who locked herself in her apartment, and Angela and her cameraman Pablo excitedly ride along.

When they arrive at the small apartment building, most of the inhabitants are gathered in the foyer with a couple policemen. Things are a bit confusing but they go up to the woman’s apartment, she is a bit incoherent and they approach her carefully, but suddenly she goes berserk and fiercely bites one of the men. As everyone tries to make sense of what has just happened, they discover that the building is in lockdown, with policemen on the outside telling them to stay indoors, that some sort of contagion is loose in the building.

As the film continues, it comes out that a sick dog may have been Patient Zero, spreading a rabies-like virus that is causing the havoc inside the building. Meanwhile, Angela naturally has Pablo continue filming the story, giving on camera commentary when she can. It turns into mayhem and she and Pablo become less of journalists and more of victims like the others, as they accuse each other, hide secrets, and try to get as much info as possible from the people outside. We see, through their camera, as a health technician is sent in to tend to the injured victims, but that he really has something to hide. One by one, they are picked off, and as they get infected, they become killers.

Chicago International Film Festival 2013 is here!

Past seven days

The film festival starts later this week, but that doesn't mean I have slowed down on watching other movies!

A.C.O.D.
Captain Phillips
The Door in the Floor
A Hijacking
The Hunt
Mostly Martha
Romeo & Juliet (2013)
Star Trek Into Darkness
Unstoppable

Horror-ble!: Ravenous

During the Mexican American war, Lt. Boyd (Guy Pearce) admits that through his cowardice—playing dead—he managed to infiltrate and take a Mexican battalion. In public, his C.O. (John Spencer) awards him a medal, but in private he banishes him to a motley outpost in California. Promoted to Captain, Boyd joins Colonel Hart (Jeffrey Jones), the gung-ho soldier Reich (Neal McDonough), the “over-medicated”—i.e., stoned—Cleaves (David Arquette), the loopy Toffler (Jeremy Davies), the alcoholic camp doctor Major Knox (Stephen Spinella) and a brother and sister Indian pair.

Boyd has a secret that becomes more of a problem once a disheveled and malnourished frozen soldier, Colqhoun (Robert Carlyle) stumbles into their camp. He says his wagon train got lost and their guide, Colonel Ives, soon forced them into cannibalism to survive, with last victims being Colqhoun and a civilian woman. Seeing that he himself was soon going to die, Colqhoun escaped and struggled to survive until he arrived here. Hart, realizing the woman might still be alive, bands everyone together except Knox, who has been drunken and unconscious, to rescue her in a cave Colqhoun leads them to.

Boyd tries to convince others that Colqhoun has taken his cannibalism to extremes, equating him to the native American myth of the Weendigo, a creature, sometimes human, that through cannibalism extracts the strength of others, but needing to feed more and more.

Horror-ble!: Martin

As a lead-up to Halloween, the next few weeks will include some posts on horror films! Hope you enjoy and find one to your liking.

The action in George Romero's "Martin" begins on a night train to New York, as a young man, Martin (John Amplas), drugs a woman then slashes her with a razor, faking a suicide. It is not entirely apparent if he actually has sex with her or if he drinks her blood. He is met in Pittsburgh by a dapper older gentleman who takes him to a house, where he accuses Martin of being a vampire. But all the man's religious and vampire talismans are wasted as Martin grabs the garlic and cross, reminding the old man he is a cousin of his. The old man continues in his assertions that the family married into vampires and Martin is one of them.

There are flashbacks in black and white to an incident where a young man who looks like Martin is being exorcised by a priest and onlookers. Like in the present, this young man is unaffected by the cleansing.

Martin continues to live in the house with the old relative and his friendly granddaughter, helping out in the corner store they own by delivering groceries to housewives. While in the house Martin is an average guy and the granddaughter is pretty sympathetic to him--she has heard these family stories for ages too and thinks her grandfather is crazy for thinking Martin is "Nosferatu."

A creepy encounter with a woman doesn't go as Martin expects and he has to improvise.  Suddenly there is a voiceover conversation, and it appears that Martin has called in to a late night radio show to discuss his vampirism. The host doesn't seem fazed by Martin and wants to meet him. Martin calls in several times to talk and although it is somewhat of a release for him, he is always scared of revealing too much.  He starts an affair with a lonely housewife, but still needs to satisfy his bloodlust.  Later the grandfather blames Martin for the death of a woman and does something just as horrible as what he accuses Martin of doing.

Past seven days

I still haven't made my schedule yet for the film festival films I am going to attend, but that only means I am busy watching even more films!  I also watched a few episodes of Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries, in the vein of Agatha Christie but a lesser and more violent Australian series.

The Business of Fancydancing
Calavera Highway
City & State (short films)
The Company Men
Good Ol' Freda
Prisoners
Sound of My Voice
Things to Come
We Are What We Are (2013)

Past seven days

The Chicago International Film Festival begins in October! Check out the schedule here. Also coming up right afterwards is the Chicago International Children's Film Festival.  Chicago is a city with a constant flow of mini festivals from every culture, social cause or just every day topics.  This past week though, some on DVD:

Baggage Claim
Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs 2
Enough Said
The Inheritance (1962)
The Last Elvis
Paprika

Afternoon Delight

The premise of Afternoon Delight has some seedy elements because it is about a wife and mother befriending a young stripper. A review I read called it an "uneasy comedy" and I agree about the uneasy part which relates equally to the stripper character as well as how the main character sees her.

The story is about a 30-something Jewish wife and mother who has become uninterested in sex with her husband. Rachel (Kathryn Hahn) has had a dry spell for some months and sees a shrink (Jane Lynch) for her problem. Her husband, Jeff (Josh Radnor), has created some popular apps so they are pretty comfortably set--not "rich" but above a normal paygrade, that's for sure. Rachel's lifestyle among some other Jewish wives is one where they do charity work and go for massages while their kids are in school, but Rachel considers herself a step or two above them intellectually as she once had aspirations to be a war correspondent (an intelligence we see little of, frankly).

A friend suggests the couple go to a strip club to get their juices going. Rachel and Jeff do so, and Rachel gets a lap dance from McKenna (Juno Temple), a young stripper. Although we can tell Rachel is somewhat and reluctantly aroused it does not solve her problem. Later Rachel sees McKenna by chance in the street and pretends to bump into her and starts a conversation.

McKenna is pretty open about her way of life and non-judgmental and Rachel likes to think that she herself is too. She invites McKenna back to the house and tells her friends she is the new nanny, and Rachel's husband is not sure where she is going with this. McKenna is physically more confident than Rachel as well. She touches her in friendly ways that makes Rachel, as in the strip club, both uneasy and aroused, yet not wanting to admit she has these sexual appetites because that would mean her marital problem is hers and nothing to do with sex. Rachel appears to think McKenna needs some salvation and she, Rachel, is the one to provide it, and this setup proves poisonous, mostly due to Rachel's misguided actions. Due to a badly phrased and probably condescending comment about her, McKenna purposely does something which breaks Rachel's social circle apart, but forces Rachel and her husband to come to terms with the larger meaning of their marital problems.

Past seven days

Fall is definitely here! The cooler weather is not conducive to enjoying the outdoors, but funnily enough I have only been in the mood to re-watch old stuff. Nothing too new this week.

Best of the Fest: Chicago International Children's Film Festival
In Transit
The Loveless
The Student

The Oscar Nominated Short Films (2012)

This compilation of Oscar-winning short films was put together by Shorts International, which also has a cable tv channel. They are the group who in the past few years have theatrically screened Oscar short film programs a few weeks just prior to the Oscar telecast, a few of which I've been able to attend. I have additionally seen a few of these at the Chicago International Film Festival or in other places. At one time cable tv channels such as HBO used shorts to either fill up an hour after the end of a film, or an established program such as Exposure, a science fiction and fantasy-based short film program hosted by Lisa Marie, would appear on the Sci Fi Channel. Now we get a whole channel devoted to shorts, in addition to many online portals one can find shorts on! Overall the films on this DVD are pretty good, a selection of live action and animated shorts from about the last ten years, and I can see why they were chosen as winners.

Films include:

God of Love (2010, U.S)
The New Tenants (2009, Denmark)
Toyland (2007, Germany)
West Bank Story (2005, U.S.)
The Lost Thing (2010, Australia)
Logorama (2009, France)
The Danish Poet (2006, Norway/Canada)
Ryan (2004, Canada)
Harvie Krumpet (2004, Australia)

Synopses and reviews after the jump!

Past seven days

Highlight of the week is Boats Out of Watermelon Rinds, a Turkish film about two youths who dream of opening a cinema and making films.  I learned a little about Mexican corridos in El Otro Lado, a documentary.  Skip Cold Prey, a run of the mill horror movie about college-aged friends trapped in an abandoned winter resort--it pays some homage to The Shining but the story is pretty unoriginal and I didn't understand who the killer was supposed to be.

About 111 Girls
Boats Out of Watermelon Rinds
Cold Prey
Off the Map
El Otro Lado
Short Term 12
Swirl

Wizards

After an apocalypse, humans are now dead or mutated from the nuclear fallout.  The real ancestors of humans, creatures such as fairies and dwarves rise up to live in peace.  After several millenia, their queen births twins, Avatar (voiced by Bob Holt), the one still using magic, and Blackwolf (Steve Gravers), who has found a way to use technology against the wizards, hoping to lead the mutants into a revolution. An animated film written and directed by Ralph Bakshi.

Past seven days

A long holiday weekend means lots of tv watching.  Although I didn't watch too many movies, I did watch some tv series on Netflix Instant:  House of Cards (2013), Top of the Lake, and Ripper Street.  I also tried Spiral, a French series (take a pass); and Rock Slyde, a comic film noir (looks like a small budget film and it shows).

Afternoon Delight
Ain't Them Bodies Saints
A Useful Life

Past seven days

Even though I haven't had a lot of reviews up, it doesn't mean I haven't been watching. Any of these you are interested in?

The Game
Hell Drivers
Monster Squad
Picnic at Hanging Rock
Prince Avalanche
Someone Like Me
Straight Time
Things to Come
Try and Get Me (aka Sound of Fury)

Morning Glory

Here's an ex-prisoner movie, but since it's based on a book by LaVyrle Spencer, you know it has a romantic bent. It's a made-for-TV film.

Set in the Depression era on the brink of World War 2, just-paroled Will Parker (Christopher Reeve) looks for work, and answers an ad from widowed farmer/mother Elly Dinsmore (Deborah Raffin, also a co-writer on this one). She’s known as a recluse and is looking for a “husband” to help her tend her farm, especially since she is pregnant.

Elly warns Will to keep away from the bee colony, it was managed by her dead husband and she considers it a danger now, but Will insists it can be a moneymaker and defies her. He becomes part of the family, first in a marriage of convenience, but then as these films often do, it turns into a more meaningful relationship with Elly.

The sheriff (JT Walsh), local waitress/loose woman (Helen Shaver) and other narrow-minded citizens make trouble for Will. Nina Foch plays a kindly librarian who knew Elly when she was younger and continues to be a helpful friend. In an unusually non-villainous role, Lloyd Bochner is a lawyer who helps them when Will is arrested for a serious crime.

Past seven days

"North & South" is a popular name for an artistic work.  The one I watched this week is a 1975 adaptation of the novel by Elizabeth Gaskell, and stars Patrick Stewart and Rosalie Shanks as the romantic leads.  Another version was made in 2004. Don't confuse it with the epic American miniseries that takes place during the Civil War era.

Also a highlight was the Oscar shorts compilation made by an organization called Shorts International.  In the past few years they've been screening in theatres, just a couple months prior to the Oscar awards ceremonies, the nominated short films for that year and some honorable mentions to make a full program.  This particular DVD had some live-action and animated winners from the past several years, some I remember watching at fests and others I have not seen before.  They were all pretty good.  Shorts International also is a partner in the Shortstv cable channel (known by several different names, depending on your geographic location) where you can watch other short films and related product.

Antibodies
Lee Daniel's The Butler
Europa Report
The Mudge Boy
North & South
The Oscar Winning Short Film Collection
The Parade
Your Beauty is Worth Nothing

Past seven days

An oddball selection this week.  The disturbing Compliance, a movie based on a manga, singer Bjork's first movie (based on a Grimm's folk tale), and Shawn Carruth's Primer and Upstream Color.

Compliance
The Juniper Tree
Kabluey
Primer
Thermae Romae
Upstream Color

The Good Herbs

I saw this Mexican film during last year's Latino Film Festival.

A single mother Dalia works at an alternative radio station, and has a mother who is a botanist. The story is divided in sections with placecards showing different plants with remedies for symptoms that refer to the events or emotions of the film.

Dalia often writes down phrases or words she hears that she finds interesting, sticking them on her wall or in books or even writing on the walls themselves, which later is reflected in signs she posts for her mother to remember what things are when the older lady begins to suffer from Alzheimer's. Her mother's quick decline leaves Dalia at a loss of how to help her and Dalia becomes more and more frustrated.

Past seven days

The last week was the majority of the 3rd French Film Festival, with my last being the based on real story thriller, 11.6, starring Francois Cluzet.  Although during the fest there were a few films starring some recognized French-language talent, such as Diane Kruger, Jean Reno, and Romain Duris, there were some more experimental films such as Carre Blanc and the artistically thoughtful Wings of Desire which I've never seen.

11.6
Cockneys vs. Zombies
In a World...
The Maid
She Loves Me Not

Near Dark

Caleb (Adrian Pasdar), a young cowboy, picks up a pretty girl, Mae (Jenny Wright), whom he thinks he can charm into having sex. When she panics as the sun comes up, he promises to take her home, after a kiss. She obliges, and in addition bites his neck. Later as he begins to get sick, he is abducted by Mae's "family," some rogue vampires (Bill Paxton as the wild card Severen, Lance Henrickson as the leader Jesse) who are not too happy to find he is a new member and not just a meal.

Meanwhile, Caleb's father (Tim Thomerson) tries to find him, thinking he's out joyriding. Caleb at first is confused as to his physical state but doesn't want to leave Mae, even if she is not as vulnerable as he first thought she was.  Essentially, Caleb wants to have it all--the girl, to have a life in the daytime, and to be rid of Mae's violent and twisted family.

Directed by Kathryn Bigelow.

Past seven days

The French Film Festival is going on this week and I was able to catch six films of this one-week fest this weekend.  And although I haven't been to as many as I like, I was also able to catch another movie-in-the-park.

About Last Night...
The Billionaire
Carre Blanc
The Chef
Fly Me to the Moon
The Gold Brooch
Populaire
The Prey
Tower Heist
Wings of Desire

The Invention of Lying

In a world where everyone tells the truth, Mark (Ricky Gervais) suddenly realizes he is able to lie, and everyone takes his words as the truth since no one has experienced lying before. The film does not explain how or why this happened to Mark, nor why he seems to understand the concept of lying. Now finally Mark can go on a date with the shallow Anna (Jennifer Garner) by lying about who he is, inflating his status in her eyes. She usually is bored with him but doesn't consider him marriage material due to his unattractiveness. Once Mark finds that he can lie, he does so thinking that it makes his and others' lives happier, but later learns it is a shallow existence with no meaning, and even worse than before.

Mark digs himself deeper in his hole, hoping to help others become better people, but everyone mistakenly believes they can be bad people on Earth since he has previously told them heaven is guaranteed.

Anna begins to question if a storybook life with the handsome Brad (Rob Lowe) is the one she wants, or she wants true love with Mark.

Past seven days

For some reason I thought I had a light week of movie watching since I've been watching a lot of TV DVDs, but I watched a decent amount, six movies this week.  There was a big variety of topics and styles.

Black Robe
Near Dark
The Science of Sleep
The Spectacular Now
The Vikings
You Laugh But It's True

Past seven days

Hot outdoors, cool indoors. Movies anyone?


All That Glitters
Fortress
Fruitvale Station
Girl Most Likely
The Grey
L.A. Confidential

Zzyzx

Make sure you spell Zzyzx right, and don’t confuse it with another movie called Zzyzx Road.  Zzyzx has three main characters stranded on a desert road and you DON’T want to join them.

Two young men, Lou and Ryan (Kenny Johnson, Ryan Fox) are on a roadtrip to Las Vegas. Lou is the dominant one, somewhat a bully to his friend, calling him "Mitch" because it rhymes with...well, you know. Ryan is a humble geek, obsessed with the legend of a cult that once inhabited Zzyzx Road, on which they are travelling. He thinks he can hear broadcasts from the cult, which was active in the 60s, on his radio headphones.

During their ride on the desolate desert road, Lou almost runs a man down by accident. When Ryan gets upset, Lou pushes his buttons and makes a U-turn with the car, implying he really is going to run the man down. Ryan panics, grabs at the steering wheel, and the man is mowed down by accident.  As the young men decide what to do, they see another person coming down the road. In a hurry, they dump the body in their back seat. The new person is Candice (Robyn Cohen), who, through her story, reveals she is stranded in her broken down trailer with her new husband, the man the guys just ran over. The guys join her at the trailer to "wait" for her husband, and Lou plays some mind games with both Candice and Ryan, alongside Ryan's increasing obsession with his cult, and some secrets that Candice has.

There are also some bookends to this main story, about a Mexican family finding some bones in the desert.

The Night Listener

This is a story written by Armistead Maupin, most famous as the author of the Tales in the City stories, and based on a real life experience of his. It is a thriller so it's very unlike his signature piece.

The film stars Robin Williams as a radio talk show monologuist Gabriel who spins stories about his life, usually embellishing them, although he claims to his audience they are facts. The film has a dark and somewhat bleak tone and Gabriel's voice reflects this.  His lover Jess (Bobby Cannavale) can no longer take Gabriel's behavior in their relationship, i.e. always on the lookout for something about the couple to spin into a story for his show. Jess feels this is becoming more intrusive, and feels Gabriel is not committed to the relationship for the right reasons.  Jess leaves just when another friend (Joe Morton) gives him an amateur memoir written by a teen fan of his radio show named Pete (Rory Culkin). Pete's memoir talks about his troubled life of having been sexually abused by his parents and other personal tragedies. Gabriel is moved by his story and starts a telelphone friendship with Pete and eventually his foster mother Donna (Toni Collette).

After a telephone encounter, someone suggests they are the same person. Gabriel is not convinced this but when he tells his secretary (Sandra Oh), she puts more doubts in his head. A couple of instances where face-to-face meetings with Pete fall through makes Gabriel more suspicious than he wants to be, leading him to try to find Pete, and Donna, to prove to himself they both exist.

Past seven days

I had a busy movie watching weekend, at least on DVD.  It looks like I was slacking off but I did also watch a bunch of TV on DVD--Andy Richter Controls the Universe, Third Rock from the Sun, The Weird Al Show, and a Canadian frontier series called Bordertown.

Bottle Rocket
Journey Among Women
Karen Cries on the Bus
Pacific Rim
The Petrified Forest
Super

Past seven days

Heading into a holiday weekend, I expect to be watching a lot of movie, on DVD at least.  But here is what I was up to the past week, and even division between movies out of the house and movies in:

Becoming Redwood
Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure
Downloaded
Far Out Isn't Far Enough: The Tomi Ungerer Story
Live-in Maid
Neighboring Sounds
ParaNorman
Red 2
Repo Man
Shaolin

Heathers

This black comedy (much more black than comedy) early in Winona Ryder's career is a little dated as to the characters' 80s hair and fashions, but has become quite a cult favorite.

Veronica (Ryder) is the fourth wheel of a popular clique of highschool girls known as the Heathers, three girls all named Heather. Heather 1 (Kim Walker) is the leader and most ruthless. Heather 2 (Lisanne Falk) is pretty much a following sheep. Heather 3 (Shannen Doherty) is even more so, she's the meekest of the three.

Veronica is increasingly unenamored of how the leader Heather 1 plays mean jokes on undesirables like nerds and fat girls, and realizes she's become anti-Heather and must stop the Heathers' domination. Veronica confides in her diary that she wants to bump off H1, but really doesn't have the guts. Meanwhile, she is attracted to the new student, Jason aka J.D. (juvenile delinquent?  played by Christian Slater), who seems to share her sensibilities.

Accidentally they kill H1, and her death is masked as a suicide by Veronica and Jason, and thus everyone thinks it is a "cry for help" and H1 is looked on sympathetically instead of the witch she was. This happens again with two male students, jocks, one whom Veronica actually kills.

Veronica begins to feel remorse but she realizes Jason is a psychopath who wants more and more. She has to now stop HIM before he puts his big plan into action.

Past seven days

I need to fit in more movies!  Only six this week.

The Bling Ring
Byzantium
Don Jon
Il Divo
My Australia
World War Z

The Way, Way Back

This movie was written/directed by the creative team who won an Oscar for The Descendents, Nat Faxon and Jim Rash, a summer film about a teen boy who is having trouble coping with his fractured family. It takes place at a small beach town where everyone comes to vacation in the summertime and although the time is not stated and the production values don’t specifically point to a decade, it is around late 1970s or early '80s  since I think as it is based on autobiographical elements from the writers.

The teen Duncan is played by Liam James. He is disgruntled (or worse) because he can’t stand his mother’s jerk of a boyfriend (Toni Colette, Steve Carell). The boyfriend, Trent, is the sort to try to get Duncan to “man up” although Trent’s efforts are more to assert his authority rather than caring about connecting with Duncan, and perhaps Trent is even a little jealous of Duncan taking away time from his mom, pat. Most of this negative behavior is done when they are out of earshot of Pat. As a result Duncan is closemouthed with Trent and almost surly, only he knows there is little he can do about this situation. This summer, they all drive to Trent’s summer cabin in a Massachusetts town, which includes Trent, Duncan, Pat, and Trent’s vain daughter from a previous marriage. Their cabin neighbor is the happy drunk Betty (Allison Janney), herself a divorcee with a mopey teen daughter Susanna (AnnaSophia Robb) and younger son Peter (River Alexander), both whom Duncan eventually befriends (although he is a loner at first). Betty and Trent are neighbors from past years, so you can see that this summer community have known each other a long time.

Duncan tries to avoid the expected socializing with Betty and another couple (Rob Corddry, Amanda Peet) so he escapes to Water Wizz, a local water park where there is a pool with a big slide, and where all the kids hang out at. There he is embraced by the employees, which include the laid back and sometimes irresponsible manager Owen (Sam Rockwell), his quasi girlfriend (Maya Rudolph) and other employees. At Water Wizz, Owen is all about the fun and kind of takes Duncan under his wing.

Past seven days

No movies in the park this week, but a mixed bunch nonetheless!

Dr. Horrible's Sing-along Blog
Forbidden Lie$
Harana
The Heat
Iron Man 3
Much Ado About Nothing (2013)
The Pool
Scheherazade, Tell Me a Story