CineFile Video

Bandidas: Salma Hayek and Penelope Cruz as bank robbers in the Old West. In chaps. Mmm.

The Bollywood Dance Workout: Indian musical style dancing that helps you burn off all that vindaloo.

The Covenant: Renny Harlin, director of beloved popcorn extravaganzas like ‘Deep Blue Sea’ and ‘Mindhunters’, helms this tale of lithe, CW-ready warlocks fighting each other with cheap computer-generated effects. It’s ‘The Craft’ for straight girls.

Conversation(s) with Other Women: Helena Bonham Carter and Aaron Eckhart star in this romantic character piece, filmed entirely in split-screen, with the two leads meeting at a wedding and establishing (or possibly re-establishing) a relationship. The split-screen allows for the characters to have flashbacks, fantasies, and act independently of each other, but the bulk of the film is the courtship dance of their conversation.

Crank: A movie with an absurd premise that, thankfully, is not only aware of its own absurdity, but revels in it. It’s a demented mash-up of Rudolph Mate’s ‘D.O.A.’ and ‘Speed’ without a bus, with soccer-hooligan posterboy Jason Statham waking up with a drug in his system that will kill him if his adrenaline levels get too low. Vowing revenge on the gangster who injected him, he goes on a demented rampage: picking fights, stealing bagfulls of energy drinks, sniffing coke off of a dirty bathroom floor, even forcing an intern at gunpoint to shock him with a defibrillater. He drives through malls, beats up cops, has sex in public, and kills many thugs. It’s inspired less by films than cartoons and video games, with a style that’s most akin to the unconventional antics of Takashi Miike or ‘Run Lola Run’. In other words, Bresson fans and admirers of the Italian neo-realists should avoid this like the plague. For the rest of us, it’s a wittier-than-expected bit o’fun.

Extras, Season 1: Rick Gervais’ follow up to ‘The Office’ presents him as a similarly petty but slightly kinder version of his David Brent character, a ‘background artist’ named Andy Millman. While the excrutiating humor of the previous show is present in the self-delusion of the leads, the funniest moments belong to the guest stars, especially a foul-mouthed Kate Winslet in a wimple and a foul-minded Patrick Stewart pitching an invisible man script.

Idiocracy: Mike Judge, creator of ‘Beavis and Butthead’ and ‘King of the Hill’, continues his investigation of American stupidity in his second live action feature. Like Matt Groening’s ‘Futurama’, it’s a science-fiction story that follows the travails of a less-than-brilliant protagonist who’s cryogenically frozen in the present, then thawed in a strange future society. And, like ‘Futurama’ did to some ‘Simpsons’ fans, its genre trappings may alienate lovers of ‘Office Space’. This would be a shame, because ‘Idiocracy’ is both a clever satire of our world today and a great comedy with lots of laughs. Plus, Maya Rudolph is adorable.

The Illusionist: A moodily directed, well-acted turn of the century tale of a stage magician, the high born woman that he loves, and the police detective investigating him. In these roles, Edward Norton is suitably magnetic as the lead, Jessica Biel holds her own admirably, and, for once, Paul Giamatti gets to play something other than a schlub. Sadly, the ending is stolen shot for shot from ‘The Usual Suspects’, bringing a sour note to an otherwise classy production.

The King: A minimalist slice of American Gothic, from Milo Addica, the writer of ‘Monster’s Ball’, and James Marsh, the director of the gorgeous documentary ‘Wisconsin Death Trip’. Sexy, sexy Gael Garcia Bernal (‘Y Tu Mama Tambien’, ‘Bad Education’, ‘Amores Perros’, ‘The Motorcycle Diaries’, ‘Science of Sleep’, ‘The Crime of Father Amaro’, ‘Dot the I’, ‘Babel’) plays a young man named Elvis (hence the title) who travels to Corpus Christi, Texas to reclaim his place with the father who abandoned him. William Hurt is the father, who’s become a preacher, married and raised a family, and the intrusion of a sin from his past doesn’t sit well with him. The plot may sound like melodrama, but the execution is languid and beautiful. In a nutshell, it’s like the Mark Wahlberg/Reese Witherspoon movie ‘Fear’, but directed by Terrence Malick.

loudQUIETloud: A Film About The Pixies: A solid documentary about the recent reunion of the four most important people in late 80’s-early 90’s alternative music who did not shoot themselves in the head.

Million Dollar Mystery: The director of ‘Compulsion’, the cinematographer of ‘Black Narcissus’, and the screenwriters of ‘Revenge of the Nerds’ join forces to update ‘It’s A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World’ into the eighties. Comic superstars Eddie Deezen, Rich Hall, and a young Kevin Pollock flail about desperately in a hunt for hidden cash. The film was a tie-in to a contest sponsored by Glad trash bags, and it failed to bring in enough in theatres to even cover the prize money.

The Night Listener: Robin Williams plays a late night radio talk show host who receives letters from a 14-year old listener who claims to be abused at home. Sadly, despite internet buzz to the contrary, it’s shooting title was not ‘Good Evening, Vietnam’. Toni Collette also stars.

Psychopathia Sexualis: High kink done in the style of silent films and early kinetoscopes. Someone will probably compare it to Guy Maddin, but it won’t be me.

Quinceanera: A festival crowd-pleaser about a pregnant 14-year old Latina who’s kicked out of her house and learns that family is who you have around you. Trust me, it sounds better in Spanish.

Snakes on a Plane: Nothing more can be said about this online. No, seriously, they passed a law.

The Snow Queen: A BBC adaptation of the classic fairy tale that nobody knows since Disney never got its grubby, pasteurizing hands on it. More power to the Brits, then, because they’ve created a delicate, artful adaptation, with real actors, manipulated to resemble moving hand-tinted photographs, moving across lush computer generated landscapes. The filmic equivalent of a book and a hot cocoa in front of a roaring fire.

Sparkle: Irene Cara, Lonette McKee, and Phillip Michael Thomas star in this Joel Schumacher-penned tale, a thinly-veiled fictionalization of the rise and fall of the Supremes. Thank you, ‘Dreamgirls’, for getting this one on DVD. This is the only theatrical venture from director Sam O’Steen, who’s most loved here for the TV movie, ‘Look What’s Happened to Rosemary’s Baby’, with Patty Duke as Mia Farrow and George Maharis as John Cassavetes. No, I’m not kidding; you can rent it here tonight.

Stand-In: See Hadrian’s post from January 8th.

This Revolution: Building a narrative film around your footage of a real life protest march does not make for ‘Medium Cool’. See this movie if you need further proof.

Van Gogh: A French biopic of Vinnie One-Ear. Contains more sex than ‘Lust for Life’.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 9th, 2007 at 10:49 pm and is filed under New Arrivals. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.