Recent Stories with tag foreign films

We are really in the thick of it. I just mentioned last week that there were a bunch of bad DVDs to come, and that is borne out with the new batch of releases. The biggest relatively high profile release is Ryan Reynolds' confined space thriller Buried, which I never saw, because I'm not into claustrophobia. Besides that, the terrible Photoshopped poster of Takers tells you everything you need to know about that one. And in Stone, Edward Norton continues to demean himself (this time with cornrows!) just to log some quality time with Robert DeNiro.

In the indie realm are several films I barely remember: YouTube high school raunch com The Virginity Hit; Freakonomics, which used the pop economists' book as the starting point for a disjointed multi-storyline ensemble piece; Paper Man, with Ryan Reynolds as Jeff Daniels' imaginary action hero friend; and Jack Goes Boating, Phillip Seymour Hoffman's directorial debut. (Did you realize any of those films even existed? I did that from memory!) One film you should actually see: Animal Kingdom, the Australian crime thriller that just might get Jacki Warner a Best Supporting Actress Oscar nom. And if you didn't get enough Death Race, check out Death Race 2.

In TV on DVD, if you miss Comedy Central's airing of Denis Leary and friends in Douchebags & Donuts, it's out this week, with a portion of the proceeds going to Leary's firefighter charity. There's Justified's first season, Merlin's second season, and Anthony Bourdain has another disc of No Reservations out. And at long last you can own Hey Vern, It's Ernest!: The Complete Series.... (more)

Of course the biggest release this Tuesday is The Social Network, blah blah blah Best Film of the Year. Also surely to be picking up awards at the Oscars, Piranha 3D is out on DVD this week, and Machete was out last week. Speaking of Robert Rodriguez, El Mariachi and Desperado are on Blu-ray for the first time, as is his Once Upon a Time in Mexico. (Robert Rodriguez fun fact: his children are named Rocket, Racer, Rebel, Rogue, and Rhiannon.)

There's really no reason to watch Dinner for Schmucks. If you're on a plane it might be halfway tolerable. I can't even say that much for supernatural thrillers The Last Exorcism and Case 39. Meanwhille, I will watch multi-talent pretty boy James Franco in anything. That includes him kissing himself in a mirror, or new release Howl starring Franco as a young Allen Ginsberg. You probably don't remember wolf cartoon feature Alpha and Omega--that's because it's terrible. I don't remember Colin Firth in a 1984 made-for-tv version of Dumas romance Camille, but it's now out on DVD.

Mayan father-and-son fishing journey Alamar and Romain Duris and Vanessa Paradis looking pretty in Heartbreaker (L'Arnacoeur). Legendary Jean Pierre Melville morals-in-war film Army of Shadows is out in a Criterion edition this week.  In other special editions, there's the 20th anniversary edition of Dances with Wolves and Backdraft, and Raging Bull celebrates its 30th anniversary with a new edition. You'd think that a Rocky and Bullwinkle complete series would be awesome, but it got mixed reviews on Amazon.

Only a few new documentaries in recent release, the biggest being "controversial" doc Catfish, "controversial" because there is some question of its truthiness. But even if it's hoaxy, that doesn't necessarily make a film less affecting (see Exit Through the Gift Shop).  Also out now is Beyond Belief, in which two 9/11 widows travel to Afghanistan to help empower women there. Only slightly less heavy is Louis CK: Hilarious, because at some point, yes, everybody accidentally tells their child that one day the sun will engulf the earth and all will be darkness and death.... (more)

The last week of new releases of last year went out not with a bang, but a whimper. Here's to hoping that 2011 brings better movies, because 2010 was downright weak. And lucky for us, all those weak 2010 releases will be released on DVD over the next few months, for you to enjoy their poor quality in the comfort of your home. With that in mind, let's take a look at the latest releases on DVD, care of our good friends at Scarecrow Video.

The biggest release last week was The American, starring George Clooney as George Clooney, an assassin working one last job, until the tables are turned and he becomes the target. In other words, George Clooney has a bad day. Speaking of bad days, Milla Jovovich has yet another one in the latest (fourth!) edition of the post-apocalyptic Resident Evil enterprise, Resident Evil: Afterlife. Gossip Girl's Chace Crawford has a bad day with drugs in Joel Schumacher's Twelve, and Idris Elba (that's Stringer Bell to you) has a bad day in a yet another bad movie choice, Legacy.

With the big releases out of the way, we can take a look at a few of the smaller ones. Legendary is Patricia Clarkson's stab at The Blind Side, with WWE star John Cena hoping to coach his little brother to a high school wrestling championship, and just maybe bring his family back together. In And Soon the Darkness, a vacation becomes trouble when a girl goes missing in Argentina, leaving her friend to find her. Handsome Harry is Jamey Sheridan as a Vietnam vet forced to face his past when his dying brother in arms Steve Buscemi seeks forgiveness. And documentary Sickert vs. Sargent covers the art world rivalry between late 1800s/early 1900s painters Walter Sickert and John Singer Sargent.... (more)

Now that Christmas is in the rear-view, there's time to catch up on the latest DVD releases, care of our good friends at Scarecrow Video. The past few weeks have brought a bunch of the big summer (and early fall) releases, from the good-enough Salt to the don't-bother A-Team to the the why-now Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps. I didn't care for Ben Affleck's directorial debut Gone Baby Gone, but that doesn't mean The Town isn't worth a rental. Same goes for The Other Guys; I'm down for Mark Wahlberg and Will Ferrell as mismatched buddy cops.

There's several new flicks for the children. Despicable Me got decent reviews, as did the Emma Thompson-written and -starring Nanny McPhee Returns. Not so for the dark Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga'Hoole. And when it comes to Step Up 3D...oh, why the hell not? The Scarlet Letter-lite Easy A is ostensibly for teens, but with a cast including Patricia Clarkson, Malcolm McDowell, and Stanley Tucci, it works for adults as well. And no one of any age should see Devil, the trapped-in-an-elevator thriller "from the mind of M. Night Shyamalan."

There's three foreign films new to DVD that played SIFF earlier this year: Fatih Akin's multi-culti restaurant crowd-pleaser Soul Kitchen, the latest spot whimsy from Jean-Pierre Jeunet, Micmacs, and Peruvian plague drama Altiplano. And catch up with a glam bombshell via the five-disc Rita Hayworth collection.... (more)

Sundance 2011 is still over a month away, but a couple days ago, the fest announced that Seattle was added to the list of cities taking part in Sundance Film Festival USA, in which festival films screen across the country during the fest itself. So if you're not in Park City on Thursday, January 27th, you can catch Cedar Rapids at the Egyptian Theatre. Here's the synopsis:

Director: Miguel Arteta; Screenwriter: Phil Johnston — A wholesome and naive small-town Wisconsin man travels to big city Cedar Rapids, Iowa to represent his company at a regional insurance conference. Cast: Ed Helms, John C Reilly, Anne Heche, Isiah Whitlock Jr., Alia Shawkat, Sigourney Weaver.

But there's plenty of time in between now and then, so let's fill it by watching some new releases, care of our good friends at Scarecrow Video. The biggest film out on DVD this week was Inception, which will assuredly end up as one of the ten Best Picture nominees come next year. It includes extras with Christopher Nolan talking about the film, but as to the ending, he's still not telling. The other big release was the fourth (and hopefully final) Shrek film, Shrek Forever After, which also means you can purchase the Shrek: The Whole Story box set (just in time for the holidays!). Speaking of special editions, there's also a big ol' Alice in Wonderland four-disc set too.... (more)

Finally, it is the best time of the movie year, in which all the Oscar bait hits the cinemas at the same time.  In just a few weeks, Black Swan, The Fighter, and True Grit will all be out in Seattle theaters, with Blue Valentine and Somewhere soon to follow. But that's to come; in the interim you'll have to make do with with the latest DVD releases, care of our good friends at Scarecrow Video.

And what a lousy week for new releases. Not sure which is worse: Tom Cruise and Cameron Diaz's action-romance Knight and Day, yet another Nicholas Cage in a wig adventure The Sorcerer's Apprentice, or the latest low-brow Movie Movie "satire" Vampires Suck. Probably the least offensive film in major release is Going the Distance, the Justin Long-Drew Barrymore long-distance rom-com. At least it's got Charlie Day.

And then there was Twilight. Because the Mormon Vampire-Werewolf saga is special, Eclipse didn't deign to come out on Tuesday, like most DVDs. Instead it waited for a Saturday night release. Not to be outdone, Destination Forks: The Real World of Twilight also came out on Saturday, to give all the superfans a look at Bella's hometown.... (more)

The snow and Thanksgiving are over, but chances are your relatives are still in town. Take a few hours off from awkward conversation/family time with a new DVD release, care of our good friends at Scarecrow Video.

Your mom probably wants to watch Eat Pray Love, starring Julia Roberts as Julia Roberts, undergoing a soul-shaking reawakening via food, spirituality, and yoga, while your douchebag brother-in-law wants to see old men (Sylvester Stallone, Dolph Lundgren, Steve Austin, Mickey Rourke, Bruce Willis, Arnold Schwarzenegger) beating each other up in The Expendables. Your weirdo cousin is interested in Joaquin Phoenix and Casey Affleck's performance art bullshit piece I'm Still Here, and your grandma wants to watch Rob Reiner's kiddie 60s romance Flipped. Of course, the kiddos get to watch the special diamond edition of Beauty and the Beast.

But there's more to choose from than just the big releases. Twisty kidnapping thriller The Disappearance of Alice Creed stars Bond girl Gemma Arterton, and Tyler Perry is back in Madea's Big Happy Family: The Play. Meanwhile, Sam Rockwell is affable as always as a girls' high school basketball coach in The Winning Season.... (more)

Over the next few cold and wintry days, it is definitely time to stay in and watch some of the latest new releases, care of our good friends at Scarecrow Video. But first, some sad movie news from this week: Queen Anne's Uptown Theater will soon be no more. After eighty-four years of showing films, the three-screen is set to close a week from today, November 28. Frowny face. Apparently, the theater "no longer competes effectively in the marketplace." In other words, MOAR 3D PLS.

Exhibit A of why more 3D is not always the answer is one of last week's new releases, the three-disc Blu-ray edition of Clash of the Titans, whose rejiggered post-production 3D ain't worth the money. Truly, the only good thing to come from that flick is the oft-used phrase "Release the Kraken."  That's more than Bow Wow's Lottery Ticket can claim. Instead, your best bet this week is Lisa Cholodenko's mature family dramedy The Kids are All Right, which will assuredly garner an Oscar nom or two.

Plenty of new films for the kids that came out last week, including creepy animated Jim Carrey in Disney's A Christmas Carol. There's also the very punny Cats and Dogs 2: The Revenge of Kitty Galore and the film that did just well enough to keep M. Night Shyamalan making movies, The Last Airbender.... (more)

This weekend you've got one more chance to check out Destroy All Movies!!!, an encyclopedic guide to the punk movement in film. Editors Zack Carlson and Bryan Connolly will be on hand at the Fantagraphics store in Georgetown to sign copies of the book, and they'll also show clips from the thousand-plus films included in the guide. With that in mind, let's take a look at the latest films on DVD, care of our good friends at Scarecrow Video.

The biggest release for the last week was Scott Pilgrim Vs. the World, which was a totally satisfying love story-comic book-videogame Michael Cera nerdfest. (I dare not mention the other big release this week, Grown Ups--what little I saw of it on an airplane last month was more than enough.)

From manchildren to kids, there's Ramona and Beezus, the feature film version of the beloved Beverly Cleary book. Also based on a book is Charlie St. Cloud, in which Kurt Cobain-to be Zac Efron spends a lot of time hanging out with his dead ghost brother.

There's a new HBO film out on DVD this week: I Knew It Was You, a tribute to gone-too-soon '70s legend, John Cazale. There's also the PBS series Circus, which takes a behind-the-scenes-look at the world under the big top. In more TV on DVD, check out The Boondocks: Season 3, as well as season 3 of Metalocalypse. For the nerds, there's season 5 of the latest incarnation of Doctor Who, and for your dad, season 1 of TNT's middle-aged dude dramedy Men of a Certain Age. And the BBC's first season of Sherlock, which just wrapped up last weekend, is now out on DVD. ... (more)

Happy end of Daylight Savings Time! Today the sun rose in Seattle at a blessed 7:03 a.m. Who cares that it'll be down before 5 p.m.? I'm just glad it's not dark till after 8 in the morning, at least for another month. Now the nights are longer, that only serves to allow more time for movie-watching. Let's take a look at the latest set of releases, care of our good friends at Scarecrow Video.

Last week's biggest release by far was Toy Story 3, which will probably be nominated for Best Picture at this year's Oscars, and has already won the award for Most Likely to Make Grown Men Cry. That's two things it doesn't have in common with Centurion, in which the Romans clash with the English in a bloody fashion.

In TV on DVD, HBO's latest WWII docuseries The Pacific is now available, as is the full series of the genre-redefining Larry Sanders Show. Also from Shout Factory is their latest Roger Corman releases Not of This Earth, and the double feature Terror Within/Dead Space. Special editions out last week include the Blu-ray debuts of The Goonies 25th anniversary edition, The Bridge on the River Kwai, White Christmas, and The Sound of Music 45th anniversary edition.

There's a few new docs: Winnebago Man, about a ranting RV salesman whose found notoriety thanks to the power of YouTube, and Please Remove Your Shoes, about that great national joke, airport security. Fresh off their work with Vincent Moon, R.E.M.'s latest concert documentary is an epic Austin City Limits performance, Live from Austin, TX.  And get ready for Warren Miller's Wintervention later this month with the release of his ski film from last year, Warren Miller's Dynasty.... (more)

Another Halloween here and gone, and now November is upon us. If you missed The SunBreak's roundtable of our picks for favorite scary movies, check out the discussion here. And now let's take a look at the most recent new releases on DVD, care of our good friends at Scarecrow.

There's a Halloween tie-in, as the biggest release last week was one of the scariest films of all time: Sex and City 2. Welcome to your post-post-post feminist hellscape. The other big release is neither scary, nor a new film, but the 25th anniversary edition of Back to the Future, the release of which led to the news that Eric Stoltz was set to play Marty McFly, before being replaced by Michael J. Fox five weeks into the film's production. Imagine how different the world would be now, had that less-traveled Stoltz road been taken. Truly, it would have made all the difference. I'm sure we'd all be time travelling by now with our hoverboards. 

Until we turn a car with winged doors into a time machine so that we can correct the mistakes of the past (and then post them on a blog), bide your time checking out the indie picks. There's Wild Grass, a romantic thriller from director Alain Resnais.  Going starker, it's Winter's Bone about a poor Ozarks teen trying to track down her deadbeat dad so that her family doesn't get evicted off their land. The situation is rough, and it's to director Debra Granik's credit, as well as the natural performance by lead Jennifer Lawrence, that the drama is so real, and won the film the Grand Jury Award at Sundance this year, as well as couple SIFF Space Needle awards.... (more)

I don't know about the rest of you, but I've been loving the weather lately. Sunny and clear, crisp and cool--it just feels like fall.  Time to break out the warm jackets and bright colors in this brief interlude before the late October rains begin with a vengeance. On these autumnal nights, when the temps are starting to dip into the 30s, you might be tempted to turn on the heat for the season, or at least light a fire. Well, throw another log on the pile, and check out the latest DVD releases, care of our good friends at Scarecrow Video.

Out on Friday (like a real movie) was the DVD release of computer-animated How to Train Your Dragon. Along with standard and Blu-ray formats, How to Train Your Dragon is also one of the first films available on newfangled Blu-ray 3D DVD. Yes, this requires a special TV, Blu-Ray player, and glasses, and none of it is cheap. But it is another option for how one can watch a movie in the privacy of their home, with all their glasses.

Or you could just watch Jonah Hex. I don't think 3D would've helped things much in this case. With Josh Brolin, Megan Fox, and John Malkovich in a comic book movie, it was bound to be bad.

On the indie tip, there's Edward Nelson and Edward Nelson starring as two brothers (one straight-laced, one stoner) in Leaves of Grass. And there's the Italian tour de force I Am Love, starring Tilda Swinton as an Italian matriarch who loves her children, her fine clothing, and the sumptuous feasts prepared by her son's friend. The film's pacing is nearly as divine as the food, the costuming, and the countryside vistas.... (more)

It's finally the beginning of the fall movie season, which means that there's actually decent stuff in the theaters. This weekend marks the cinematic arrival of two films well worth your while: The Social Network, in which the methodical, artistic eye of David Fincher, a whipsmart script by Aaron Sorkin, and a universally strong cast team up to tell the story of how an Aspergery sociopath who doesn't know how to be anyone's friend created a new method of friendship for the modern era, and Waiting for 'Superman', in which An Inconvenient Truth director David Guggenheim gives a pointed, devastating blow-by-blow on the failures of the American public school system.

But there's also new releases on DVD this week, so let's get to the rundown, care of our good friends at Scarecrow Video. The biggest release this week was Iron Man 2, but you wouldn’t know it from all the promotion for rowdy rock comedy Get Him to the Greek. And you know Banksy doesn't follow conventions--out Friday was his doc lampooning the art world, Exit Through the Gift Shop.

I didn't see Michael Winterbottom's The Killer Inside Me at Sundance last year. While I love the director's varied work, I just don't wish to watch Casey Affleck spend two hours raping, beating, and killing women, even if the women in question are Kate Hudson and Jessica Alba. Also at Sundance was Frozen, a thriller in which three snowboarders get stranded on a chairlift and now must face the cold night and everything it brings. Coco Chanel & Igor Stravinsky is a lush period piece that tells the tumultuous romance between the two artistic luminaries, while Good stars Viggo Mortensen as a doctor whose beliefs are twisted for nefarious Nazi purposes.

In TV on DVD, there's the new Kids in the Hall series, Death Comes to Town. There's also the second season of beloved (read: gone too soon) ensemble catering comedy Party Down. Epic '70s miniseries Rich Man, Poor Man is now available in Complete Collection form.... (more)

The weekend's over, but that doesn't mean you can't still catch up on the latest DVD releases, care of our good friends at Scarecrow Video. The biggest release last week was Robin Hood, the latest Russell Crowe-Ridley Scott joint. For something a little more Oscar-worthy, check out The Secret in Their Eyes, the Academy Award winner for Best Foreign Film last year. Repo Man director Alex Cox has another culture-skewering film in Searchers 2.0. And then there was Ondine, the Colin Farrell mermaid movie that played at SIFF earlier this year.

In terms of documentaries, there's Directors: Life Behind the Camera, which gathered together such cinematic luminaries as Altman, Lynch, Gilliam, and Scorsese to talk about their craft. In Todd P Goes to Austin, DIY indie rock promoter Todd Patrick takes some of the bands he reps (Matt & Kim, Dan Deacon) from Brooklyn all the way to Texas, and When We Were Boys follows childhood friendships over two years at Royal St. George's, an elite Toronto boys' school.

In the arthouse grab bag is the Criterion edition of Audrey Hepburn-Cary Grant classic comedy-thriller Charade, because who doesn't like two beautiful people being beautiful together in a beautiful locale, all in HD? There's also My Dog Tulip, the touching animated story of a man (voiced by Christopher Plummer) and his dog, and The Pool, a realistic drama (directed by American Movie's Chris Smith) about a poor Indian boy who becomes obsessed with a wealthy family's swimming pool. If you wanna get real indie, check out (Untitled), an art world romance with Adam Goldberg, or Trash Humpers, the latest from garbage auteur Harmony Korine.... (more)

You know it's a week full of quality movies on DVD when the biggest release is a television show. Yes, the biggest DVD for the week was the sixth and final season of Lost, which includes (zomg) another eleven minutes of never-before-seen bonus scenes of Ben and Hurley on The Island. There's also a new crazy-ass box set of the whole series.

Besides that, the next biggest release is The Back-up Plan, Jennifer Lopez's getting knocked up and then meeting the man of your dreams rom-com. There's also City Island, a family-with-secrets comedy that's actually one of the top box office earners amongst indie films this year. There's a mediocre movie version of Dorian Gray and the latest zombie installment from George A. Romero, Survival of the Dead.

Ajami is well-reviewed, but to me the intersecting storylines just sound like Crash in the Middle East. Shirin is an experimental film with Juliette Binoche, in which a theater audience watches a film based on a poem, while The Square is a noir thriller from Australia. Nightfur is a sci-fi romance with a soundtrack by Band of Horses, and Abandoned looks to be the final (direct-to-DVD) release with Brittany Murphy.

In terms of special editions, there's the 30th anniversary release of Shogun Assassin, the Bluray of cult British comedy Withnail and I, and 1969 gangster flick Machine Gun McCain, starring John Cassavetes, Peter Falk, Britt Ekland, and Gena Rowlands. This week also marks the release of three silent films by Josef Von Sternberg from Criterion: Docks of New York, The Last Command, and Underworld.... (more)

Here we are in the thick of August's silly season, which last year was focused on talk of death panels and this year is dominated by the threat posed by a ZOMG Ground Zero terror mosque.  It's almost as if the media has nothing else to do with their time, besides quash intellectual debate and foment fear.  Might we suggest they take a break from the crushing twenty-four-hour news cycle, in favor of a movie or two?  With that in mind, here's a look at recent DVD releases, care of our good friends at Scarecrow Video.

The silly season of August also means fewer new DVDs of note, but there have been a few out recently that are worth your while: last week brought Date Night and this week marked the release of The Good, the Bad, and the Weird, a Korean take on the spaghetti western. There's also Cemetery Junction, which I honestly don't know much about, but when the words "written and directed by Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant" are used, I say, "yes please."... (more)

Oh, hello there. Now that we've got a weekend of summer rain and Blue Angels under our belt, it's time to take a look at the latest releases on DVD, care of our good friends at Scarecrow Video. The big DVD out this week is Kick-Ass, which was a lot of fun. (And yes, while the film is ostensibly about Kick-Ass, it's really all about Hit Girl and Nic Cage's sly take on Batman.) But don't let the kids see that one--it's actually pretty violent. Instead, steer them towards Diary of a Wimpy Kid, based on the book series of the same name.

The Ghost Writer is the smart thriller that Shutter Island should've been, assuming you can get past the fact that it was directed by Roman Polanski. Oscar-nominated stylized French prison drama A Prophet (Un prophète), in which a new inmate learns how to work the system, also hearkens back to Scorsese's glory days. And there are two crummy releases with the word "life" in the title: To Save a Life, a glorified after-school special, and After.Life, a bad horror flick with Christina Ricci as a dead girl who doesn't accept she's dead just yet.

On the documentary tip, there's a look at the life of Jim Henson in Henson's Place: The Man Behind the Muppets, and a look at D&D nerds in Dungeon Masters. Meanwhile, Sweetgrass is a poetic paean to real-life current-day cowboys driving their sheep flocks through the West, while All God's Children examines the offspring of missionaries who faced abuse at the hands of their parents' colleagues. And if you didn't get enough hardcore harp action with Joanna Newsom in town, check out Harp Dreams: Inside the International Harp Competition, following the thirty-one young contestants who are amongst the best harpists in the world.... (more)

It's time for another set of new DVD releases, care of our good friends at Scarecrow Video. First, because I have to: Release the Kraken! Yes, this week brings Clash of the Titans, the widely panned epic mythology battle starring Bad 3-D. There's also Repo Men, which foretells our dystopian organ transplantation future.  It's not entirely stupid, but I just can't buy Jude Law as the ripped action hero.  There's also a couple crappy horror flicks: The Uninvited and Don't Look Up.

Looking at the foreign releases, check out Vincere, a biopic on Mussolini and the tumultuous relationship with his much-maligned longtime lover. There's also Ip Man, a biopic on the man who taught Bruce Lee martial arts. And Criterion has their edition of French-Turisian family drama, The Secret of the Grain, which is all about couscous.

Just a couple documentaries this week. I Need That Record! is a loving look at the independent music store. And The Art of the Steal is a documentary on a cache of modern and post-impressionist art and the many museums jostling for control of the $25B collection.... (more)

It's a warm and wonderful summer day, so let's stay inside.  Whether you are avoiding those oppressive rays of sunshine or the unmitigated hellscape known as Capitol Hill Block Party, today's a good day to hole up and watch some movies.  So let's take a look at the new DVD releases this week, care of our good friends at Scarecrow Video.

This week is actually light on new releases, which you can tell by the big studio films out this week.  There's The Losers, which even comic book nerds/action fans didn't like, and Cop Out, Kevin Smith's latest, which nobody liked.  Rock chick fan pic The Runaways fared better.  Yes, it ostensibly stars Kristen Stewart as Joan Jett (and Dakota Fanning as Cherrie Curie), but come on now--it's Michael Shannon as manager-svengali Kim Fowley who really steals the show.

In foreign films, there's Mother, Bong Joon-Ho's (The Host) latest thriller about a mom desperate to track down a killer in order to free her framed son.  There's also A Town Called Panic, which follows the adventures of a group of ragtag toys. WARNING: This is a French stop-motion comedy.... (more)

The weather is getting summery, but if you still want to spend some time indoors, there's plenty of movies for your rental pleasure.  Let's check out this week's new releases on DVD, care of our good friends at Scarecrow Video. 

If you can't wait till Wednesday for your Robert Pattinson fix, there's the romantic drama Remember Me, in which R-Patz falls for Lost's Emilie de Ravin before tragedy strikes in the form of a spoiler you can easily look up all over the internets. A slightly less realistic romance occurs in She's Out of My League, with dweeb of the moment Jay Baruchel. If you're looking for the inner workings of a real relationship, please see The Last Station starring Christopher Plummer and Dame Helen Mirren as Leo Tolstoy and his wife Sofya.

This week also brings Green Zone, in which Matt Damon is a soldier in Iraq. It's directed by Paul Greengrass, which means there's lots of handheld camerawork, translating into action sequences where you can't tell what's occurring or who is chasing whom. We get it already--war is confusing!  Too bad this film culminates in the shocking reveal two-thirds of the way through:  there are no WMD in Iraq.  Do yourself a favor and avoid this Snore Identity.... (more)

I gave this post a rest during SIFF, just because there were already more than enough movies to go around. That being said, you didn't miss much: the biggest new releases on DVD were Alice in Wonderland, Dear John, The Road, and Shutter Island (and you all know how I feel about that last one).

There was also Califone's first foray into film, All My Friends are Funeral Singers, the sequel to Planet Earth, BBC series Life, Oscar foreign film winner The Secrets in Their Eyes, David Cross' latest Bigger and Blackerer, and Saturday Night Fever by way of Pinochet Tony Manero. Let us not speak of The Wolfman, nor From Paris with Love.

Now let's take a look at more recent releases on DVD, care of our good friends at Scarecrow Video. Last week offered up terrible rom-com When In Rome, terrible post-apocalypse The Book of Eli, and terrible indie flick Happy Tears. I haven't seen Youth in Revolt, but I liked the book when I was a youth and it stars cutie pie Michael Cera, so I will reserve judgment at this time. There's also Mary and Max, a stop-motion animation feature with the voices of Phillip Seymour Hoffman and Toni Collette, and the Criterion edition of Jim Jarmusch's Mystery Train.... (more)

Director Caroline Kamya is bringing her homeland of Uganda to the world, one screening at a time. Imani, Kamya's feature film debut, marked the first Ugandan film ever to screen at the Seattle International Film Festival. It gave SIFF audiences one of their best left-of-center surprises, and it's been reaping acclaim as it travels festivals across three continents. The movie follows three disparate Ugandans, each facing their own particular crisis: Mary (Rehema Nanfuka), a maid, is forced to make a wrenching personal choice in her attempts to bail her troubled sister out of jail. Breakdancer Armstrong (Philip Buyi Roy) finds his wild past catching up with him on the eve of a gig for his dance troupe. And young Olweny (Stephen Ocen), a former child soldier, leaves a rehabilitation center to reestablish his relationship with his parents.

Kamya takes what could be so much melodramatic pot-boiling and imbues it with a slow-burning unique rhythm and flavor. Her unobtrusive directorial eye presents this world with a documentarian's objective clarity, at an unforced pace with ebbs and surges guided by the hot, dry climate. Andrew Mark Coppin's camera finds unadorned beauty in Uganda's people, and in the slums and humble villages they occupy: men navigate the dusty streets of Kampala balancing sofas on bicycles, and poetic messages of affirmation emerge from ghetto walls like faint but persistent whispers to passersby. The screenplay (by Kamya's sister Agnes Nasozi) does its own gentle bending of cliche, bypassing hopelessness yet offering few easy answers to its protagonists, and the actors (amateurs, all) deliver utterly natural, affectingly real performances. In its own low-key way and on its own terms, Imani accomplishes what all really good movies should: it invites viewers to visit a unique universe.

That universe is seldom seen by Western eyes, so talking to its driving force especially intrigued me, and the director does not disappoint. Kamya speaks of Imani like a proud mother, in a sonorous English-accented voice that never slows down; and her energy, brio, and mega-watt smile are genuine and infectious.... (more)

Undaunted by the arrival of spring weather, Team SunBreak followed SIFF's call, getting inside theaters to soak up screening during the festival's final weekend. Below, we weigh in with our picks and pans of the festival films we saw over the weekend.

Audrey spent the weekend with two fine Americans: American Faust is a comprehensive look at the Bush administration through the prism of Condeleeza Rice, and really it's a brilliant study of one woman putting power before all other things. By the end, you both pity and hate Condi for her version of the American Dream. Meanwhile, American: The Bill Hicks Story chronicles the rise of the outspoken controversial comedian, using tons of rotoscoped photos, home videos, and interviews with friends and family to really get to Hicks as both a caustic comedian and an intensely loved individual.

MvB: A science-fiction film from Switzerland, Cargo was notably short on novelty, mashing up bits of the Matrix with Blade Runner's off-world colonies, but Anna-Katharina Schwabroh has an off-beat charm, and the idea of P-Patchers as terrorists of the future is delightful.

Johnnie To's Vengeance stars French singer Johnny Hallyday in a black fedora and trench coat, and with a bullet in his brain. Honor, brotherhood, and going down in a hail of bullets and blood packs is the order of the day. A stunning Kurosawa-like set piece employs of bales of recycled paper.

The documentary Plug & Pray surveys the spectrum of techno-belief, from the spooky Raymond Kurzweil and his dreams of cyborg life, to scientists working on AI for military or commercial applications, to Cassandra-like professor emeritus of computer science at MIT, Joseph Weizenbaum, who owns the movie. Ostensibly about thinking gadgets, the film demonstrates that it's what people think that still matters most.... (more)

Here we are, watching our way through the last week of SIFF, seeing as much as we can before the sun and World Cup vie for our attention. All of us at The SunBreak weigh in with our picks and pans of the festival films we saw so far this week.

It seems like everyone saw 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, with varying levels of affection for the film and the live score composed & performed by Stephin Merritt. Once I came to accept it as the LOST of its time (with its intersecting storylines, mysterious island, characters with unclear motivations, multiple flashbacks, abrupt entry of characters and set pieces, and dramatic special effects), I allowed myself to appreciate the serialized drama and its showcase of undersea cinematography. Still, with high expectations from his other work and some of the other overwhelming experiences from past SIFF presentations, I didn't think that Merritt's fairly minimal score added as much as it might have.  

Don: Organ melodies, synthesizer bleeps, a tuba, a trumpet, and vocals through two megaphones provded the background to the invention of underwater filming. Watching was a lot like flying: a few moments of sheer terror, separated by long stretches of boredom. Except it was more like a few moments of audible or visual humor, separated by long stretches of repetitive melodies backing a couple fish swimming in a grey ocean. A couple remarked that it was "hilarious" on the way out and two people rose for a standing ovation. I thought the organ looked cool.

Tony: Film purists probably balked at its irreverence and more than one of my eminent SunBreak colleagues were nonplussed, but I enjoyed this SIFF archival presentation with musical accompaniment. Merritt's playful music included some hummable melodies, and I found the bits of atmospheric texture scattered throughout to be pretty immersive. As for the film itself, it's a dated but fascinating artifact--really the Avatar of its day (1916) what with its underwater cinematography and lavish production values. For a very early silent, it also sports an impressively ambitious structure containing three intersecting stories and flashbacks from multiple sources--pretty heady stuff for a movie that's older than your great-grandparents.

MvB: agreed with the previous assessments.

Reactions to other films after the jump.

MvB: Secrets of the Tribe exposed how anthropologists studying the Yanomami's every word and gesture failed to remark on their own signal contributions to this "virgin" culture: bribery with modern weapons and tools, rapacious pedophilia, exposure to new diseases. But any outrage gets watered down by bitchy talking-head sequences that reduce things to anthro-politics.

The Wedding Cake is a droll French comedy that skewers the fetish for "perfect" wedding days, marriage itself, class pretension, youthful infatuation, and new car smell. It's fun, but even the young lovers (*Harry Potter*'s Fleur Delacour stars) aren't that likable or mature, and by the end you begin the share the elder participants' "You kids stay off my lawn" sentiments. (screens again tonight, June 10, 9:30 p.m. @ Uptown; June 13, 4:00 pm @ Uptown)... (more)

Here we are at the last week of SIFF (*sniffle*). All of us at The SunBreak weigh in with our picks and pans of the festival films we saw this weekend.

MVB:  Based on Cell 211, it looks like somebody in Spain has been watching Oz. It's a dark, brutal, bloody prison riot parable with Basque terrorist spice that left people stunned (today, 4 p.m. @ Neptune).  Imani is a walking-paced Ugandan movie, charting post-war life through three different story threads. Subtle, but it builds (June 11, 4:30 p.m. @ Harvard Exit). I almost skipped The Tillman Story; now I'm very, very glad I didn't. Feels like I finally got a real glimpse of that guy. Downside: complete disgust with U.S. military command. Ondine is a fairy tale about how directors like to cast super-hot Romanian girls to wear lingerie. Sigur Ros songs suggest artistic depth! Ireland looks nice, though (June 13, 11:30 a.m. @ Pacific Place).

Audrey saw three heavy docs this weekend: David Guggenheim's Waiting for Superman, about the overwhelming failure of the American public school system, is simultaneously inspiring and heartbreaking.  Look for it to win the Best Documentary Oscar come next February.  The Tillman Story, about the search for truth behind the myth of the most famous man to serve and die in Iraq, was only slightly less of a well-made downer.  So by comparison, Garbo the Spy, about the greatest double agent freelance spy ever, was downright fun--yes, even though it culminates in the D-Day invasion of Normandy.  Thankfully, Meet Monica Velour was there to lighten the mood. It's obvious to say that this awkward teen's romancing of a washed-up porn star (played dead-on by Kim Cattrall) is cinematic cousins with Little Miss Sunshine and Napoleon Dynamite, but there's more to Keith Bearden's film than just simple quirks.

Josh: Somewhat surprisingly, I think that my favorite film of the weekend was Leaves of Grass, another Edward Norton split personality triumph, that takes the themes of a a Greek tragedy and wraps it in the cloak of a pot comedy. Norton is hilarious in both roles, with strong folksy charm from Tim Blake Nelson (who also wrote and directed), Keri Russell, and Susan Sarandon. The film starts as a light comedic contrast between twin brothers with very different career paths, but things get more and more intense once the classics professor is tricked into returning to small-town Oklahoma, where he has to deal with unresolved family drama and gets wrapped up in a convoluted hydroponic marijuana operation.

Fans of the band are the most likely to relish Strange Powers, the Stephin Merritt documentary (today with Merritt in attendance, 4 p.m. @ SIFF Cinema). While the filmmakers aren't able to pry too deeply below his famously cantankerous surface, the directors do a fine job of making a concert film that also chronicles the history, trajectory, and interpersonal dynamics that have made the Magnetic Fields so well-loved. Of local interest is the brief section on the infamous EMP Pop Conference "Zip-A-Dee Doo-Dah" rockist-racist blogger fiasco, complete with a mea culpa from Sasha Frere-Jones. Though the film necessarily required artist approval, it doesn't come across as too sugar-coated and should make a nice companion to Stephin's live performance this week during 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (June 9, 7:30 p.m. @ Paramount).... (more)