The Water Horse: Legend of the Deep

"The Water Horse: Legend of the Deep" gets the reccomendation of LA Times critic Kevin Crust:

This enchanting tale of friendship and evolving relationships engagingly grafts coming-of-age movie chestnuts onto a Scottish folk tale. Though most of the narrative won't surprise anyone who has seen "E.T. The Extraterrestrial" or numerous similar stories, director Jay Russell and screenwriter Robert Nelson Jacobs create a realistic world where the fantastical is credible.

Synopsis of The Water Horse: Legend of the Deep

When Angus, a young Scottish boy, finds an enchanted egg, he takes it home and soon finds himself face-to-face with an amazing creature: the mythical water horse of Scottish lore. Angus begins a journey of discovery, facing his greatest fears and risking his life to protect a secret that would give birth to a legend.

Opened December 25, 2007 Runtime: 1 hr. 51 min.
PG- mild action/violence, some language and smoking
Cast: Emily Watson, Alex Etel, David Morrissey, Ben Chaplin
Director: Jay W. Russell
Genres: Children's Fantasy, Fantasy

Search for "The Water Horse: Legend of the Deep" at Amazon.com

Showtimes and tickets online for "The Water Horse: Legend of the Deep" at Fandango.com

There Will Be Blood

LA Times critic Kenneth Turan recommends "There Will Be Blood":

"There Will Be Blood," the joint venture between actor Daniel Day-Lewis and director Paul Thomas Anderson, might be the most incendiary combination since the Molotov cocktail. Though it can be over the top and excessive, this morality play set in the early days of California's oil boom also creates considerable heat and light and does some serious aesthetic damage. (Read Turan's full review of There Will Be Blood)

Synopsis for "There Will be Blood"

The story chronicles the life and times of one Daniel Plainview (Daniel Day-Lewis), who transforms himself from a down-and-out silver miner raising a son on his own into a self-made oil tycoon. When Plainview gets a mysterious tip-off that there’s a little town out West where an ocean of oil is oozing out of the ground, he heads with his son, H.W. (Dillon Freasier), to take their chances in dust-worn Little Boston. In this hardscrabble town, where the main excitement centers around the holy roller church of charismatic preacher Eli Sunday (Paul Dano), Plainview and H.W. make their lucky strike. But even as the well raises all of their fortunes, nothing will remain the same as conflicts escalate and every human value – love, hope, community, belief, ambition and even the bond between father and son – is imperiled by corruption, deception and the flow of oil.

Opened December 26, 2007 Runtime: 2 hr. 38 min.
R - some violence
Cast: Daniel Day-Lewis, Paul Dano, Kevin J. O'Connor, Ciarán Hinds, Dillion Freasier
Director: Paul Thomas Anderson
Genres: Period Film, Drama, Family Drama

Search for "There Will be Blood" at Amazon.com

Showtimes and Tickets for "There Will be Blood" at Fandango.com

Persepolis

Persepolis is recommended by the LA Times critic Carina Chocano who writes:

A familiar story set in an unfamiliar context, it's a paean to the universality of human experience, a testament to the endurance of individuality during great political and fanatical upheaval, and a reminder that even the most complex situations, identities and stories are heartbreakingly simple. (Read Chocano's full review of Persepolis at the LA Times)

Synopsis for "Persepolis"

We meet 9-year-old Marjane when the fundamentalists first take power; she cleverly outsmarts the “social guardians” and discovers punk, ABBA and Iron Maiden, while living with the terror of government persecution and the Iran/Iraq war; as a teenager, her parents send her to school in Austria in fear for her safety and she has to combat being equated with the religious fundamentalism and extremism she fled her country to escape. Marjane gains acceptance in Europe but finds herself homesick, and returns to Iran to be with her family, though it means putting on the veil and living in a tyrannical society. She enters art school and marries, continuing to speak out against the hypocrisy she witnesses. At age 24, she realizes that while she is deeply Iranian, she cannot live in Iran. She then makes the decision to leave for France, optimistic about her future, shaped indelibly by her past.

Opened December 25, 2007 Runtime: 1 hr. 35 min.
PG-13 mature thematic material including violent images, sexual references, language and brief drug content

Cast: Chiara Mastroianni, Catherine Deneuve, Gena Rowlands, Sean Penn, Iggy Pop
Director: Marjane Satrapi
Genres: Drama, Coming-of-Age
In French with English subtitles.

Search for Persepolis at Amazon.com

Showtimes and Tickets for Persepolis at Fandango.com

Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story

Kenneth Turan of the LA Times recommends "Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story"

It's not easy to "Walk Hard," not easy to live the life that led to being immortalized in "Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story." Dewey Cox -- singer, songwriter, legend -- would be the first to tell you that, if he were for real. He's not, of course, but there are moments during this smart and genial satire when you could swear he was.That's because this gleefully jaundiced skewering of American popular music in general and biopics like "Walk the Line" and "Ray" in particular knows that humor comes from both loving your source material and knowing it inside out. (Read Turan's full review)

Synopsis for "Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story"
America loves Dewey Cox! But behind the music is the up-and-down-and-up-again story of a musician whose songs would change a nation. On his rock 'n roll spiral, Cox sleeps with 411 women, marries three times, has 22 kids and 14 stepkids, stars in his own '70s TV show, collects friends ranging from Elvis to the Beatles to a chimp, and gets addicted to--and then kicks--every drug known to man. But despite it all, Cox grows into a national icon and eventually earns the love of a good woman--longtime backup singer Darlene.

Opened December 21, 2007 Runtime: 1 hr. 36 min.
R - sexual content, graphic nudity, drug use and language
Cast: John C. Reilly, Jenna Fischer, Kristen Wiig, Tim Meadows, Raymond J. Barry
Director: Jake Kasdan
Genres: Parody/Spoof, Musical Comedy, Comedy

Showtimes and tickets online from Fandango.com

Starting Out in the Evening

Kenneth Turan recommends "Starting Out in the Evening" (search at Amazon.com) writing

Intelligent, involving and conspicuously adult, this film creates high drama from an unlikely source: the life of a New York novelist in his 70s. Making this happen is the presence of top actors Frank Langella, Lili Taylor and Lauren Ambrose. You won't see more convincing acting by a committed ensemble anywhere this fall. (Kenneth Turan's capsule review)

"Starting Out in the Evening" Synopsis
All that remains for Leonard Schiller (Frank Langella) is to finish the novel he has been laboring on for almost 10 years. His solitary writer's life is shaken by the arrival of Heather (Lauren Ambrose), an ambitious graduate student who persuades him that she can use her thesis to spur a rediscovery of his work. But as her inquiry proceeds, Heather displays a profound personal interest in Leonard, which unsettles him and stirs up his long-dormant need for intimacy. Meanwhile, Leonard’s daughter Ariel (Lili Taylor) reconnects with her ex-boyfriend Casey (Adrian Lester), a man Leonard firmly disapproves of. Leonard’s encounters with Heather lead him down an unfamiliar path that threatens his writing, his health, and his relationship to his daughter. But in living out in the open, in the evening of his life Schiller puts into practice the core theme of his novels -- life is not designed for our comfort but for our struggle, for in struggle there is growth.

Opened November 23, 2007 Runtime: 1 hr. 51 min.
PG-13 sexual content, language and brief nudity
Cast: Frank Langella, Lauren Ambrose, Lili Taylor, Adrian Lester
Director: Andrew Wagner
Genres: Drama

Times and locations for Starting Out in the Evening at Fandango.com

The Savages

LA Times movie critic Carina Chocano gives recommends "The Savages"

Tamara Jenkins' second film, after the equally wonderful though not as mature "Slums of Beverly Hills," is a reckoning, a brutal encounter with mortality told with uncommon humanity, wit and humor. Jon Savage (Philip Seymour Hoffman) gets a middle-of-the-night call from his sister, Wendy (Laura Linney), informing him that their father (Philip Bosco) has been scrawling nasty messages on the bathroom wall with his feces. Jenkins has called it a "coming of middle age story," about siblings who are forced to grow up when their father becomes a child. LA Times capsule review

"The Savages" Synopsis
Wendy Savage (Laura Linney), a struggling playwright, has little to do with her brother, Jon (Philip Seymour Hoffman), a college professor and author. However, the siblings must find a way to work together when their aged father, Lenny (Philip Bosco), slides into senility and must be placed in a nursing home.

Opened November 28, 2007 Runtime: 1 hr. 53 min.
Rated R
Cast: Laura Linney, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Philip Bosco, Peter Friedman, David Zayas
Director: Tamara Jenkins
Genres: Comedy Drama, Medical Drama, Family Drama, Domestic Comedy

Tickets and times for "The Savages" at Fandango.com

Juno

Juno gets a recommendation from the LA Times

Ellen Page plays a pregnant teen who tries to find the right set of adoptive parents for her unborn baby in this seriocomic tale from writer Diablo Cody and director Jason Reitman. With Jason Bateman, Jennifer Garner and Allison Janney. PG-13 for mature thematic material, sexual content and language. (LA Times capsule review of Juno)

Juno - Synopsis
Juno MacGuff (Ellen Page) is a whip-smart teen confronting an unplanned pregnancy by her classmate Bleeker (Michael Cera). With the help of her best friend Leah (Olivia Thirlby), Juno finds her unborn child a perfect set of parents: an affluent suburban couple, Mark and Vanessa (Jason Bateman and Jennifer Garner), longing to adopt. Luckily, Juno has the total support of her parents (J.K. Simmons and Allison Janney) as she faces some tough decisions, flirts with adulthood and ultimately figures out where she belongs.

Opened December 5, 2007 Runtime: 1 hr. 32 min.
PG-13 mature thematic material, sexual content and language
Cast: Ellen Page, Michael Cera, Jason Bateman, Jennifer Garner, Allison Janney, J.K. Simmons
Director: Jason Reitman
Genres: Comedy Drama, Coming-of-Age, Ensemble Film, Domestic Comedy

Best 10 Movies 2007 LA Times Reviewer Kevin Crust

LA Times published the Top 10 Movies of 2007 list from reviewer Kevin Crust today in this story The Movies that Mattered. Crust, in his preamble states:

It's unclear to me whether it's a commentary on the movies of 2007 or the state of my life that throughout the year I found the best of them burrowing their way into my core in ways I never imagined. Through both literal and lyrical conveyance, the stories and characters onscreen aligned with my own experiences in manners profound and unsettling. And everywhere I turned, Philip Seymour Hoffman seemed to be staring me in the face.

Crust's List for Best Movies of 2007

• The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (Find it at Amazon.com)
• Once (Once at Amazon.com)
• Into the Wild (Into the Wild at Amazon.com)
• No Country for Old Men
• 4 Months, 3 Weeks & 2 Days
• I'm Not There Find it at Amazon.com
• Away From Her (Away From Her at Amazon.com)
• Michael Clayton
• This Is England (This is England at Amazon.com)
• Anything with Philip Seymour Hoffman. The films did not always match up to his prodigious presence, but that ultimately didn't seem to matter

Crust finishes off with a comment about the worst films of 2007:

It's deeply lamentable that the sheer volume of films makes it so difficult for audiences to find the great ones. Whether they're drowned out by the sound and fury of the summer spectacles or jockeying with one another for attention during the overcrowded fall and holiday seasons, quality films and the marketing and publicity people behind them increasingly face an uphill battle.

And that's just why I run this blog; so that with the help of the LA Times movie reviewers we can sift out the good from the bad. I just added several movies to my Netflix's queue using my 2007 posts. The holiday season is going to act as catch-up for me on all the great movies I've missed seeing throughout 2007. I hope this record of what the LA Time's reviewers consider the best helps you also sort out those films worth watching from the worst.

Grace is Gone

Kevin Crust of the LA Times gives "Grace is Gone" a "recommended" rating in his review:

The directorial debut of screenwriter James C. Strouse, "Grace Is Gone" is an emotionally rich and satisfying drama featuring a terrifically understated performance from John Cusack. In a year that has seen wave after wave of films addressing the war in Iraq with varying degrees of anger and frustration, "Grace" serves as a gently thoughtful coda and reminder of what continues. Read Crust's entire review of Grace is Gone

Synopsis: Stanley Phillips (John Cusack) receives the kind of news that every spouse of a soldier dreads: His wife, Grace, has been killed in Iraq. He must find a way to break the news to his two young daughters, Heidi (Shélan O'Keefe) and Dawn (Gracie Bednarczyk), but cannot bring himself to do it. Stanley takes the girls on a road trip to Florida, all the while searching for the right time and place to tell them about their mother's fate.

Grace Is Gone
Opened December 7, 2007 Runtime: 1 hr. 25 min.
PG-13
Director: James C. Strouse
Genres: Art House/Foreign, Drama

Local screening times and tickets online at Fandango.com

The Golden Compass

The Golden Compass gets an "Also Recommended" award from Kenneth Turan of the LA Tmes

The first of the novels in Philip Pullman's landmark "His Dark Materials" trilogy, about an alternate England where souls manifest themselves and creatures and a mysterious group plots to control the world, is turned by writer-director Chris Weitz into a formidable piece of craftsmanship, as some 1,100 effects shots are used to create a physical world that has the ability to take your breath away. The voice of Ian McKellen as a fighting bear is the icing on the cake.

Synopsis "The Golden Compass"
Lyra Belacqua (Dakota Blue Richards) is an orphan who lives happily in Jordan College, Oxford, playing with local boys and terrorizing the professors. However, when Lyra overhears scholars discussing a plot against her uncle, Lord Asriel (Daniel Craig), centering a mysterious substance called Dust, her curiosity is roused. Soon Lyra is in over her head as she uncovers a frightening plot and a whole new world of possibilities.
Cast: Nicole Kidman, Dakota Blue Richards, Daniel Craig, Sam Elliott, Eva Green
Director: Chris Weitz
Genres: Fantasy Adventure, Fantasy
Opened December 7, 2007 Runtime: 1 hr. 54 min.
PG-13 sequences of fantasy violence

The Diving Bell and the Butterfly

Kenneth Turan LA Times gives "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly" an Also Recommended award

Director Julian Schnabel has avoided the obvious pitfalls and won the best director prize at Cannes for dramatizing a true story of a man whose perfectly functioning brain is trapped in a paralyzed body. This imaginative and sensitive film, starring France's gifted Mathieu Amalric, is simultaneously uplifting and melancholy, suffused with an unexpected sense of possibility as much as the inevitable sense of loss.

Synopsis "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly"
The astonishing true-life story of Jean-Dominic Bauby - a man who held the world in his palm, lost everything to sudden paralysis at 43 years old, and somehow found the strength to rebound - first touched the world in Bauby's bestselling autobiography The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (AKA La Scaphandre et la papillon), then in Jean-Jacques Beneix's half-hour 1997 documentary of Bauby at work, released under the same title, and, ten years after that, in thisCannes-selected docudrama, helmed by Julian Schnabel (Basquiat) and adapted from the memoir by Ronald Harwood (Cromwell).

The Schnabel/Harwood picture follows Bauby's story to the letter - his instantaneous descent from a wealthy and congenial playboy and the editor of Elle Paris, to a bedbound, hospitalized stroke victim with an inactive brain stem that made it impossible for him to speak or move a muscle of his body. This prison, as it were, became a kind of "diving bell" for Bauby - one with no means of escape.

With the editor's mind unaffected, his only solace lay in the "butterfly" of his seemingly depthless fantasies and memories. Because of Bauby's physical restriction, he only possessed one channel for communication with the outside world: ocular activity. By moving his eyes and blinking, he not only began to interact again with the world around him, but - astonishingly - authored the said memoir via a code used to signify specific letters of the alphabet.

In Schnabel's picture, Mathieu Almaric tackles the difficult role of Bauby; the film co-stars Emmanuelle Seigner, Marie-Josée Croze, Anne Consigny and Patrick Chesnais. ~ Nathan Southern, All Movie Guide

The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
Opened November 30, 2007 Runtime: 1 hr. 52 min.
PG-13 nudity, sexual content and some language
Cast: Mathieu Amalric, Emmanuelle Seigner, Marie-Josée Croze, Anne Consigny, Patrick Chesnais
Director: Julian Schnabel
Genres: Docudrama, Drama

Won Best Director Cannes Film Festival 2007
Won "Vulcain de l'Artiste-Technicien" Prize Cannes Film Festival 2007


Screening locations and times for "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly" at Fandango.com

Atonement

Kenneth Turan of the LA Times gives "Atonement" a critics' choice award and writes:

…this is one of the few adaptations that fives a splendid novel the film it deserves. An assured and deeply moving work, “Atonement” is at once one of the most affecting of contemporary love stores and a potent mediation on the power of fiction to destroy and crate, to divide and possibly hear. About the affect a young girl’s false accusations have on her older sister and her lover.

"Atonement" Synopsis

In 1935, 13-year-old fledgling writer Briony Tallis (Saoirse Ronan) and her family live a life of wealth and privilege in their enormous mansion. On the warmest day of the year, the country estate takes on an unsettling hothouse atmosphere, stoking Briony’s vivid imagination. Robbie Turner (James McAvoy), the educated son of the family’s housekeeper, carries a torch for Briony’s headstrong older sister Cecilia (Keira Knightley). Cecilia, he hopes, has comparable feelings; all it will take is one spark for this relationship to combust. When it does, Briony – who has a crush on Robbie – is compelled to interfere, going so far as accusing Robbie of a crime he did not commit. Cecilia and Robbie declare their love for each other, but he is arrested – and with Briony bearing false witness, the course of three lives is changed forever.

Opened December 7, 2007 Runtime: 2 hr. 3 min.
Rdisturbing war images, language and some sexuality
Cast: James McAvoy, Keira Knightley, Romola Garai, Saoirse Ronan, Vanessa Redgrave
Director: Joe Wright
Genres: Period Film, Drama, Romantic Epic, Romance

Get screening times and locations for Atonement from Fandango.com

Recommended DVD Box Sets for Christmas Gifts

Here are some suggestions for DVD box sets as possible Christmas and holiday gifts. All are available from Amazon.com. Hold your mouse over the links for more information.

Addams Family: Complete Series Gift Set

BBC Planet Earth: Complete Series

The Coen Brothers Gift Set

Ford at Fox

Harry Potter Limited Edition Gift Set

Ingmar Bergman: Four Masterworks

James Bond Ultimate Collector's Set

Ray Harryhausen in Color Gift Set

United Artists 90th Anniversary Gift Set

I'm Not There

"I'm Not There" gets a recommendation from Carina Chocano:

Todd Haynes' "I'm Not There" is a film about Bob Dylan, but it's as far away from a movie like "Ray" or "Walk the Line" as it can be and still be considered an example of the same genre. A meticulous deconstruction of the legend, "I'm Not There" is the anti-biopic. It stars Christian Bale, Cate Blanchett, Marcus Carl Franklin, Richard Gere, Heath Ledger and Ben Whishaw as Bob Dylan. None of the characters they play are called Bob Dylan, however (nor Robert Zimmerman, Dylan's real name, for that matter), and only some of them look or sound like him. (Blanchett takes top honors for both.) Read Chocano's entire review of I'm Not There

I'm Not There Synopsis
Several actors portray legendary singer-songwriter Bob Dylan at different stages in his personal life and career. In 1959 a guitar-strumming youth (Marcus Carl Franklin) rides the rails, calling himself 'Guthrie.' Then a man named Jack (Christian Bale) emerges in New York's Greenwich Village, followed by Robbie (Heath Ledger), Jude (Cate Blanchett) and other personalities.

Opened November 21, 2007
Runtime: 2 hr. 15 min.
R for language, some sexuality and nudity
Cast: Christian Bale, Christian Bale, Cate Blanchett, Marcus Carl Franklin, Richard Gere
Director: Todd Haynes
Genres: Musical Drama, Biography [feature], Drama

How to Cook Your Life

Kenneth Turan gives "How to Cook Your Life" a recommendation:

This is an unexpectedly charming and enlightening film, a documentary that makes the most of the intersection of Zen Buddhism and cooking in the life of Edward Espe Brown, author of the celebrated Tassajara Bread Book. An inspired idea.
LA Times Capsule Review How to Cook Your Life

Synopsis:
Self-depreciating Zen Buddhist priest, chef, and Tessajara Bread Book author Edward Espe Brown takes over Buddhist center kitchens around the world to school viewers in the joys of organic cooking as filmmaker Doris Dörrie rolls camera to explore just how Zen wisdom and a sharp chef's knife can be the key components to a meal that nourishes both the body and the soul. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide

Doris Dörrie - Director, Screenwriter, Cinematographer
Run Time: 1:33
Release November 2007

Enchanted

Kenneth Turan gives "Enchanted" a recommendation saying:

This is one film that lives up to its name. An adroit combination of wised-up and happily-ever-after, its story of an animation princess thrust into New York's gritty reality gently mocks the mighty Disney fantasy machine without losing the core of the franchise's family appeal. Amy Adams is as good as it gets in the princess role.

Synopsis:
The tale follows the beautiful princess Giselle (Amy Adams) as she is banished by an evil queen (Susan Sarandon) from her magical, musical animated land – and finds herself in the gritty reality of the streets of modern-day Manhattan. Shocked by this strange new environment that doesn’t operate on a happily ever after basis, Giselle is now adrift in a chaotic world badly in need of enchantment. But when Giselle begins to fall in love with a charmingly flawed divorce lawyer (Patrick Dempsey) who has come to her aid – even though she is already promised to a perfect fairy tale prince (James Marsden) back home – she has to wonder: Can a storybook view of romance survive in the real world?


Opened November 21, 2007
Runtime: 1 hr. 47 min.
PG
Cast: Amy Adams, Patrick Dempsey, James Marsden, Timothy Spall
Director: Kevin Lima
Genres: Fairy Tales & Legends, Comedy, Family-Oriented Comedy

War/Dance

Kenneth Turn gives "War/Dance" his Critics' Choice" medallion writing:

An enormously emotional and spiritually uplifting documentary that follows war-torn children from a Ugandan refugee camp as they compete in a national music competition. "It is difficult for people to believe our story," one of the participants says. "But if we don't tell you, you won't know." And if you don't know, you will be missing something quite special.

Synopsis:
Since the 1980's, Uganda has been in a state of civil war, with the nation's leadership violently contested by a revolutionary force known as the Lord's Resistance Army (or L.R.A.). The fighting is fiercest in the North of Uganda, and there the L.R.A. recruit many of their soldiers by abducting children from refugee camps and homes in the poverty-stricken villages, where electricity and running water are still luxuries known only to a few. However, in the village of Patongo, located deep in Uganda's war zone, a group of students (many of whom escaped from the clutches of the L.R.A.) struggles to rise above the violence and desperation that surrounds them. Each year, a student music festival is held in Kampala, Uganda's capitol city, in which children from around the country compete for prizes in performing traditional music and dance. When the students of the Patongo Primary School are invited to compete for the first time, the children are both thrilled at their opportunity and determined to prove that in a place of violence and want, creativity and talent can still take root. War Dance is a documentary about the Patongo Primary School's long journey to the Kampala Music Festival and the experiences, both good and bad, which informed them. War Dance received its world premiere at the 2007 Sundance Film Festival. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Awards:
Won Best Director - Documentary Sundance Film Festival 2007

Won Natasha Isaacs Cinematography Award Chicago International Documentary Festival 2007

Steal a Pencil for Me

Kevin Crust gives "Steal a Pencil for Me" a Critic's Choice award.

It's a scenario that sounds like the romantic tragicomedy Woody Allen never wrote (but might have): Unhappily married, impoverished Dutch Jewish accountant Jack Polak meets young, wealthy beauty Ina Soep at a birthday party and is instantly smitten. Unfortunately, it's 1943 and Holland is occupied by the Nazis. Within months, Jack, Ina and Jack's wife, Manja, are all picked up and find themselves in the same concentration camp.

But this is no piece of fiction. Director Michèle Ohayon's striking documentary "Steal a Pencil for Me" tells this most unusual love story with grace and compassion. Through the Westerbork and Bergen-Belsen camps, Jack and Ina's relationship -- kept alive primarily through letters -- survives against all odds.

Synopsis: A man, his wife, and the women he has fallen deeply in love with experience jealousy and heartbreak while housed together in the same barrack of a World War II-era concentration camp in Oscar-nominated director Michele Ohayon (Cowboy Del Amore)'s unflinching look at love in a land ravaged by war. His marriage already failing when he and his wife were assigned to live in a concentration camp, Jack soon found comfort in the arms of new love interest Ina. Though his wife voiced vehement objection to the relationship, Jack continued to communicate with his newfound love in a series of furtively-penned love letters. It was through these clandestine correspondences that Jack and Ina were eventually able to gain the strength needed to get through such a dark time, but as the war draws to a close all three survivors are forced to make some difficult, and potentially life-altering, decisions. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide

Released November 2007
In English and Dutch with English subtitles.
Running time: 1 hour, 34 minutes.
Documentary Drama

No Country for Old Men

Kenneth Turan's capsule review of "No Country for Old Men" says it all - don't see this movie if you don't have a stomach for violence. Despite it all, Turan recommends the movie:

With this intense, nihilistic thriller, the Coen brothers drop the mask. They've put violence on screen before, lots of it, but not like this..."No Country For Old Men" doesn't celebrate or smile at violence, it despairs of it, despairs of its randomness, pervasiveness and inescapability, of the way it eats at the soul of society and the individuals in it.

Capsule review of "No Country for Old Men" by Kenneth Turan

Llewelyn Moss finds a pickup truck surrounded by a sentry of dead men. A load of heroin and two million dollars in cash are still in the back trunk. When Moss takes the money, he sets off a chain reaction of catastrophic violence that not even the law--namely aging, disillusioned Sheriff Bell--can contain. Moss tries to evade his pursuers, in particular a mysterious mastermind who flips coins for human lives, as the crime drama broadens.

Opened November 2007
2 hr. 2 min.
R - strong graphic violence and some language
Cast: Tommy Lee Jones, Javier Bardem, Josh Brolin, Woody Harrelson, Kelly MacDonald
Director: Joel Coen
Genre: Crime Thriller, Thriller

American Gangster

Kenneth Turan writing for the LA Times raves about "American Gangster", saying:

It takes nerve to call a film "American Gangster": It's more than a movie title, it's the name of a venerable genre that dates to cinema's beginnings. But once you see this finely made and richly satisfying film, you understand it's the only title possible.

Review of American Gangster by the LA Times' Kenneth Turan

Synopsis
Frank Lucas (Denzel Washington) earns his living as a chauffeur to one of Harlem's leading mobsters. After his boss dies, Frank uses his own ingenuity and strict business code to rise up as one of the inner city's most powerful crime bosses. Meanwhile, veteran cop Richie Roberts (Russell Crowe) senses a change in organized crime's power structure, and looks for ways to bring his opponent to justice. (Times and tickets at Fandango.com)

Opened November 2007
2 hr. 37 min.
R - violence, pervasive drug content and language, nudity and sexuality
Cast: Denzel Washington, Russell Crowe, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Cuba Gooding, Jr., Josh Brolin
Director: Ridley Scott
Genre: Crime Drama, Gangster Film, Crime

Before the Devil Knows You're Dead

Kenneth Turan gives "Before the Devil Knows You're Dead" a recommendation:

A tense anti-caper that's part thriller and part Greek tragedy, the crime is such a prize specimen in the gallery of regrettable decisions that director Sidney Lumet gets the scene of the crime out of the way early, then keeps coming back to it for the rest of the movie, as if trying to figure out how all of these well-intentioned people got here in the first place.

Synopsis from Fandango

Andy (Philip Seymour Hoffman), a debt-ridden broker, needs some quick cash. He ropes his younger brother, Hank (Ethan Hawke), into a scheme to commit the perfect crime: to rob their parents' (Albert Finney, Rosemary Harris) jewelry store. The scheme goes horribly awry, and the family patriarch takes justice into his own hands, unaware that the criminals he is hunting are his own sons.


Opened October 2007
1 hr. 57 min.
Rated R
Cast: Philip Seymour Hoffman, Ethan Hawke, Marisa Tomei, Albert Finney, Rosemary Harris
Director: Sidney Lumet
Genre: Crime Thriller, Crime, Family Drama

Dan in Real Life

Kenneth Turan in reviewing "Dan in Real Life" writes

...if what you want is a star-driven sophisticated romantic comedy that is successfully aimed at actual adults..."Dan in Real Life" is such a film. Starring contemporary comedy giant Steve Carell and Oscar-winning French high-culture heroine Juliette Binoche, a coupling as unlikely as it is delicious, "Dan" offers the most pleasing kind of unforced charm as it uses a terrific plot device to examine the conflicts between family and romance as well as the joy and pain of being in love.

Review of Dan in Real Life by Kenneth Turan, LA Times

Dan Ashburn is a devoted single father and renowned advice columnist. When his entire extended family gets together for a reunion in a beach-front house, he unexpectedly meets Beth, the woman of his dreams. She is smart, funny, beautiful and she just happens to be his brother Lowell's girlfriend. The man with all the answers finds that the hardest advice to take is his own.

Release Date: October 2007
Running Time: 1 hr. 35 min.
PG-13
Cast: Steve Carell, Juliette Binoche, Dane Cook
Director: Peter Hedges
Genre: Romantic Comedy, Comedy Drama

Best Vampire Movie Picks by Steve Niles

There are no additions to LA Times Critics' Choice or Also Recommended movies today, but there was an interesting list of best vampire movies of all time by Steve Niles who co-authored the "30 Days of Night" novels that inspired the recently released film.

Here are Nile's picks from down the dark passage of movie time with the actor who played the vampire in the movie listed first (go here for the complete LA Times Calendar Live article):

• Max Schreck, "Nosferatu" (1922)
  Schreck is the German word for "terror" -- and completely fitting for the Berlin-born actor in F.W. Murnau's silent classic. "There is nothing like it, it's so scary and so powerful . . . A lot of people thought he really was a vampire."



• Willem Dafoe, "Shadow of the Vampire" (2000)
  Almost 80 years after "Nosferatu," Schreck was brought back to life on screen by Dafoe in this quirky film that posits the idea that Schreck was indeed a member of the undead. The dark comedy earned Dafoe an Academy Award nomination.
  


• Bela Lugosi, "Dracula" (1931)
  "He has to be at the top of any list, of course," Nile said. "He brought Dracula to the whole world. And just the fact that when he died he was buried in his Dracula cape . . ."
  


• Klaus Kinski, "Nosferatu the Vampyre" (1979)
  "Shot for shot, this is just the most beautiful vampire movie...one of the famed collaborations between director Werner Herzog and his volatile on-screen muse Kinski.
  


• Jack Palance "Dracula" (1973)
  "Palance was real physical, he made Dracula scary again. . . . He showed Dracula wasn't just about perfectly coiffed hair, like Langella."
  


• William Marshall, "Blacula" (1972)
  Marshall...really made his mark as Mamuwalde, the African prince bitten by Dracula in the 1700s and on the loose in the groovy streets of 1970s L.A. Niles said he has no reservations about putting the blaxploitation melodrama on his list: Being a horror fan means accepting a certain measure of schlock. "And I had a 'Blacula' poster on my wall for years too."
  


• Tom Cruise, "Interview With the Vampire: The Vampire Chronicles" (1994)
  "I thought (Cruise) was fantastic, he completely pulled it off. I wasn't a big fan though of Brad Pitt in the movie."
  


• Reggie Nalder, "Salem's Lot" (1979)
  "This might be my favorite," Niles said. "For all my complaining that vampires on screen are usually not really very scary, this is a huge exception.
  


• Barry Atwater, "The Night Stalker" (1972)
  This is probably the most obscure entry on this list, but Niles said it's an essential one. "This is one of the best vampires ever, one that really sticks with me. He had red eyes, he was tall and lanky and almost ghoulish. What was so great.
  

Lars and the Real Girl

If you just read the synopsis of this movie, you'd no doubt give it a pass. However, the LA Area critics all seemed to agree on the various radio and TV shows this past Thursday and Friday that this is a movie worth seeing. Kenneth Turan of the LA Times gives it a "Critics' Choice Award" and says of "Lars and the Real Girl":

This is a Frank Capra-style fable, a throwback tribute to the joys of friendship and community... Taking one of the most salacious items modern culture can provide as their centerpiece, the filmmakers have created the sweetest, most innocent, most completely enjoyable movie around.

Synopsis:

Gosling stars as Lars Lindstrom, a lovable introvert whose emotional baggage has kept him from fully embracing life. After years of what is almost solitude, he invites Bianca, a friend he met on the Internet to visit him. He introduces Bianca to his brother Gus (Paul Schneider) and his wife Karen (Emily Mortimer) and they are stunned. They don't know what to say to Lars or Bianca – because she is a life-size doll, not a real person and he is treating her as though she is alive. They consult the family doctor Dagmar (Patricia Clarkson) who explains this is a delusion he's created – for what reason she doesn't yet know but they should all go along with it. What follows is an emotional journey for Lars and the people around him.

Opened October 12, 2007
1 hr. 46 min.
PG-13
Cast: Ryan Gosling, Emily Mortimer, Paul Schneider, Patricia Clarkson, Kelli Garner, Nancy Beatty, Karen Robinson
Director: Craig Gillespie
Genre: Romantic Comedy, Comedy Drama, Psychological Drama Ryan

Michael Clayton

I'm left wondering why Kenneth Turan didn't give "Michael Clayton" an LA Times Critics Choice medallion as he writes so enthusiastically of the directorial debut of Tony Gilroy:

After what must seem like a lifetime of writing screenplays for other people to direct, Tony Gilroy has come out from behind the curtain. With the George Clooney-starring "Michael Clayton," he's not only saved his best script for himself, he's also turned out a smart and suspenseful legal thriller that comes completely alive on-screen.

Watching this film makes you feel that Gilroy, best known for writing credits on all three "Bourne" films, has poured the energy pent up during a decade and a half in Hollywood into this strong and confident directorial debut about desperate men searching for redemption in a cold and ruthless world.

Read Kenneth Turan's full review of Michael Clayton

Synopsis:

Former prosecutor Michael Clayton (George Clooney) works as a ''fixer'' at the corporate law firm of Kenner, Bach & Ledeen, and takes care of his employers' dirty work. Clayton cleans up clients' messes, handling anything from hit-and-runs and damaging stories in the press to shoplifting wives and crooked politicians. Though burned out and discontented in his job, Clayton is inextricably tied to the firm. At the agrochemical company U/North, the career of in-house chief counsel Karen Crowder rests on the settlement of the suit that Kenner, Bach & Ledeen is leading to a seemingly successful conclusion. When the firm's top litigator, the brilliant Arthur Edens (Tom Wilkinson), has an apparent breakdown and tries to sabotage the entire case, Marty Bach sends Michael Clayton to tackle this unprecedented disaster and, in doing so, Clayton comes face to face with the reality of who he has become.

Opened October 5, 2007
2 hr. 0 min.
R - language including some sexual dialogue
Cast: George Clooney, Tom Wilkinson, Tilda Swinton, Sydney Pollack, Michael O'Keefe
Director: Tony Gilroy
Genre: Thriller, Paranoid Thriller


Times and tickets online at Fandango

Lust, Caution

Kenneth Turan writing for the LA Times says of "Lust, Caution":

...an unapologetic wartime melodrama, centering as it does on spies, assassination plots, adultery and serveral kids of betrayal in Japanese occupied China during World War II.

Synopsis: The World War II Japanese occupation of Shanghai in 1942 continues in force. Mrs. Mak walks into a café, places a call, and then sits and waits. She remembers how her story began in 1938 China. She is not in fact Mrs. Mak, but shy Wong Chia Chi (Tang Wei).

With WWII underway, Wong has been left behind by her father, who has escaped to England. As a freshman at university, she meets fellow student Kuang Yu Min (Wang Leehom). He convenes a core group of students to carry out a radical and ambitious plan to assassinate a top Japanese collaborator, Mr. Yee (Tony Leung). Each student has a part to play; Wong will be Mrs. Mak, who will gain Yee’s trust by befriending his wife and then draw the man into an affair.
An unexpected fatal twist spurs her to flee. Shanghai, 1941. Kuang re-enters her life. Now part of the organized resistance, he enlists her to again become Mrs. Mak in a revival of the plot to kill Yee.

Release Date" September 2007
2 hr. 38 min.
Rated NC-17 - some explicit sexuality
Cast: Tony Leung Chiu-Wai, Tang Wei, Joan Chen, Wang Lee Hom, Anupam Kher
Director: Ang Lee
Genre: Period Film, Erotic Drama, Unglamorized Spy Film, Thriller

Show times and locations for Lust, Caution at Fandango

Jindabyne Released on DVD

Jindbyne which was featured in this post back in April is now available on DVD.

Great World of Sound

Kenneth Turan, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer says of "Great World of Sound":

This is a country where everyone is convinced they have undiscovered talent, but what's truly widespread is the talent to connive and the willingness to be taken in. Witness "Great World of Sound," an involving, offbeat and truly unusual American independent film.

Enthusiastically received at Sundance, "Great World" is an intriguing look at our obsession with being successful and famous, at the deals we make that we fool ourselves aren't really with the devil. And it reveals a world of musical strivers so unnerving it makes the run-up to "American Idol" look like tryouts for the Metropolitan Opera.

Full review of Great World of Sound by Kenneth Turan

Martin (Pat Healy) answers an ad to train as a record producer, where he's excited by the prospect of signing undiscovered artists. The company, called Great World of Sound, partners shy, unassuming Martin with the gregarious Clarence (Kene Holliday) and sends them on the road, visiting southern towns where the company has placed newspaper ads and turning motels into makeshift audition studios. Though an unlikely duo, they sign more acts than anyone else at the company. But when Martin takes a special interest in a young girl’s “New National Anthem,” putting up his own money and following her progress, he discovers that something’s amiss with the enterprise. As things threaten to unravel, he’s forced to weigh his nagging conscience against both his loyalty to Clarence and his own financial ruin.

Released: September 2007
Run Time: 1 hr. 46 min.
Rated R
Cast: Pat Healy, Kene Holliday, Robert Longstreet, Rebecca Mader
Director: Craig Zobel
Genre: Road Movie, Message Movie, Buddy Film, Drama

Show times and locations for Great World of Sound at Fandango.com

Into the Wild

LA Times reviewer Kenneth Turan says:

"Into the Wild," Penn's film on McCandless' experiences, is a complete change of pace for the writer-director. It's his warmest, most celebratory and most completely realized film and, though you might not guess it from the material, it is also arguably his most personal. (Full review of Into the Wild by Kenneth Turan)

Christopher McCandless (Emile Hirsch), son of wealthy parents (Marcia Gay Harden, William Hurt), graduates from Emory University as a top student and athlete. However, instead of embarking on a prestigious and profitable career, he chooses to give his savings to charity, rid himself of his possessions, and set out on a journey to the Alaskan wilderness.

Release Date: September 2007
2 hr. 20 min.
Rated R
Cast: Emile Hirsch, Marcia Gay Harden, William Hurt, Jena Malone, Catherine Keener
Director: Sean Penn
Genre: Adventure Drama, Docudrama, Drama

3:10 to Yuma

All the critics in the LA Area I heard loved this remake of the 1957 western "3:10 to Yuma" , as did LA Times reviewer Kenneth Turan who, in his recommendation says:

What's most impressive...is that James Mangold directs with such energy and passion it's as if he didn't know it's all been done before. Approaching this material with the enthusiasm of a famished man confronting his first square meal in days, Mangold has brought welcome intensity to the project, giving "3:10 to Yuma" a visceral, immediate quality that makes it realistic and mythic all at the same time.

Synopsis:
Outlaw Ben Wade (Russell Crowe) terrorizes 1800s Arizona, especially the Southern Railroad, until he is finally captured. Wade must be brought to trial, so Dan Evans (Christian Bale), the owner of a drought-stricken ranch, volunteers to escort him to the train. Along the trail, a grudging respect forms between the men, but danger looms at every turn, and the criminal's men are in pursuit.

Release date: September 2007
1 hr. 57 min.
R
Cast: Russell Crowe, Christian Bale, Peter Fonda, Gretchen Mol, Ben Foster
Director: James Mangold
Genre: Western, Outlaw (Gunfighter) Film, Psychological Western

The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters

The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters gets a recommendation from Kenneth Turan who writes in his capsule review of the movie:

Obsession creates its own fascination, and never more so than in this sprightly new documentary that's as compulsively watchable as Donkey Kong, the vintage video game it focuses on, is addictive. Filmmaker Seth Gordon, who edited and produced the excellent "New York Doll," focuses on the psychological dynamics of rivalry, concerning himself with what it takes to get to the top of anything, even video gaming, and the lengths people will go to stay there.

Synopsis:
Billy Mitchell, named ''Video Game Player of the Century'' in 1999, set a record score in Donkey Kong that many felt would never be broken. In 2003, Steve Wiebe, who recently lost his job, learned about Billy's record and set out to beat it. With Billy's previous record now shattered, both men embark on a cross-country battle for inclusion in the 2007 Guinness Book of World Records as the supreme king of Donkey Kong.

Release date: August 2007
1 hr. 19 min.
PG-13
Cast: Billy Mitchell, Doris Self, Steve Wiebe, Nicole Wiebe, Steve Sanders, Todd Rogers, Walter Day
Director: Seth Gordon
Genre: Biography, Hobbies, Crafts & Games, Sports & Recreation, Culture & Society

King of California

Kenneth Turan of the LA Times in recommending "The King of California" writes:

Douglas and Evan Rachel Wood are heartbreaking and hilarious as a modern-day Prospero (here called Charlie) and Miranda trying in vain to make sense of the brave new world that has overtaken their old one and in a quixotic quest for a long-buried fortune in Spanish gold. A fable set in the most banal, prosaic real world imaginable, Cahill's observations of the details of the modern world earn him the right to be whimsical. (Kenneth Turan capsule review of The King of California)

Synopsis:
At the age of sixteen, Miranda (Evan Rachel Wood) has already had to live with her share of disappointments. Abandoned by her mother, she's dropped out of school and has been supporting herself as an employee at McDonald's while her father Charlie (Michael Douglas) resides in a mental institution. When Charlie is released and sent back to their home, Miranda finds the relatively peaceful existence she's built for herself completely disrupted. Charlie has become obsessed with the notion that the long-lost treasure of Spanish explorer Father Juan Florismarte Garces is buried somewhere near their suburban California housing unit. Armed with a metal detector and a stack of treasure-hunting books, Charlie soon finds reason to believe that the gold resides underneath the local Costco, and encourages Miranda to get a job there so that they can plan a way to excavate after hours.

Showtimes and tickets online for the King of California from Fandango

Release Date: September 2007
1 hr. 33 min.
PG-13
Cast: Michael Douglas, Evan Rachel Wood, Willis Burks II, Laura Kachergus, Paul Lieber, Kathleen Wilhoite
Director: Michael Cahill
Genre: Comedy Drama, Family Drama

In the Shadow of the Moon

Kenneth Turan of the LA Times calls 'In the Shadow of the Moon' "an unexpected knockout." In his recommendation he says "Even if you care so little about the moon that you wouldn't mind if it's made of green cheese, the romance of this endeavor will capture you entirely."

Between 1968 and 1972, nine American spacecrafts voyaged to the Moon, and 12 men walked upon its surface. They remain the only human beings to have stood on another world. For the first time, and possibly the last, the film combines archival material from the original NASA film footage, much of it never before seen, with interviews with the surviving astronauts, who emerge as eloquent, witty, emotional and very human.

Kenneth Turan's full review of In the Shadow of the Moon

Tickets and times for In the Shadow of the Moon at Fandango


Release date: September 2007
1 hr. 40 min.
Rated PG
Cast: Capt. James Lovell, Buzz Aldrin, Edgar Mitchell, Alan Bean, Mike Collins
Director: David Sington
Genre: Biography, History, Social History, Physical Sciences

Private Property

Kennety Turan of the LA Times gives the Begian movie "Private Property" a recommendation. His capsule review states:

There are no horrors like family horrors. The nightmare hidden in the everyday is more frightening than any extreme situation. witness the powerful emotional impact of this devastating Belgian film starring Isabelle Hupperty. An impeccably acted character drama revolving around a mother and her two teenage sons, the film shows how strong and how terrifying the bonds between parents and siblings can be. It etches the line between love and hate and a savagery that is almost unprecedented.

Synopsis by Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

The sale of a family home causes some ugly truths to be uncovered in this drama from writer and director Joachim Lafosse. Pascale (Isabelle Huppert) is a middle-aged divorcée living in a restored farmhouse on the French countryside with her twin sons, twentysomethings Francois and Thierry. After years of bickering with her ex-husband about the estate, Pascale has decided to sell the farmhouse with an eye toward opening a guest house in a resort community, but the twins are vehemently opposed to the idea. Pascale persuades her boyfriend to talk with Francois and Thierry in hopes of changing their mind, but the meeting does not go well and the twins inadvertently discover a long-held family secret that causes them to turn against Pascale, as well as one another. Also starring Jérémie Rénier and Yannick Renier as the twins, Nue-Propriété received its world premier at the 2006 Venice Film Festival.

1 hr. 45 min.
Cast: Isabelle Huppert, Jérémie Rénier, Yannick Renier, Kris Cuppens, Raphaëlle Lubansu
Director: Joachim Lafosse
Genre: Drama, Family Drama
Begian movie in French

Superbad

A recommendation goes to "Superbad" from Carina Chocano writing for the LA Times in her capsule review of the movie:

This is not a teen movie -- it's a movie about young people. Wide-eyed and sincere as it is hilariously, unrepentantly profane, the movie aims to express what it's like to stare down the barrel of your first lone foray into adulthood, and it's not afraid to be honest about it. High-strung, impulsive Seth (Jonah Hill) and shy, gentle Evan (the gifted Michael Cera) are days away from graduating from high school. Embarking on a late-night odyssey, an epic journey that takes them through all manner of perilous encounters with thugs and weirdos, drunks and cokeheads, and women who are way more uninhibited than they can handle, the lifelong best friends confront their fears, confessing their feelings and growing up. (C.C., Aug. 17) (1:54) R for pervasive crude and sexual content, strong language, drinking, some drug use and a fantasy/comic violent image -- all involving teens. (Read Chocano's full review of Superbad - A Sweet Surprise, teen raunch isn't what's shocking; it's the love story.)

Synopsis: High-school seniors Seth (Jonah Hill) and Evan (Michael Cera) have high hopes for a graduation party: The co-dependent teens plan to score booze and babes so they can finally be part of the in-crowd, but their separation anxiety and two bored police officers (Bill Hader, Seth Rogen) complicate the pair's self-proclaimed mission.

August 2007
1 hr. 54 min.
R
Cast: Jonah Hill, Michael Cera, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, Bill Hader, Seth Rogen
Director: Greg Mottola
Genre: Teen Movie, Sex Comedy, Buddy Film, Comedy

Rescue Dawn

Carina Chocano in her LA Times capsule gives "Rescue Dawn" a "Recommened" award writing:

Werner Herzog has been here before, and not just because he first visited this story in his 1997 documentary "Little Dieter Needs to Fly." A dramatic interpretation of the true-life ordeal of Navy pilot Dieter Dengler, who escaped from a Laotian POW camp shortly before the start of the Vietnam War, "Rescue Dawn" mines the themes that have preoccupied Herzog throughout his singular career.

PG-13 for some sequences of intense war violence and torture.

2006 movie being released to theaters August 2007

Delirious

Kevin Crust writing his "Recommended" capsule for the LA Times on "Delirious" says:

Tom DiCillo's film, a fractured fairy tale of lost innocents finding and losing one another in a world bordered by paparazzi, reality television and MTV, skewers the celebrity subculture while deftly portraying friendship as the compromised collateral damage of love. A story peopled by flawed archetypes, it's an achingly funny film that is also a little sad around the edges. Steve Buscemi stars as a paparazzo with dreams of being a "real" photographer, whose routine is upset when a young homeless man latches onto him and becomes his unpaid assistant.

LA Times Kevin Crusts full review of "Delirious"

Les Galantine (Steve Buscemi) is a paparazzi photographer who yearns to be a “real” photographer. He slinks through a daily routine of watching as the rich, famous and beautiful walk past the velvet ropes and into the exclusive VIP areas of New York's best clubs. This routine is upset when a young homeless man named Toby (Michael Pitt) stumbles upon Les and his fellow paparazzi staking out a trendy Manhattan hot-spot in hope of getting a shot of K’harma (Alison Lohman), a young pop diva. Seeking shelter, Toby follows Les and becomes his unpaid “assistant,” eagerly lapping up Les’ life lessons, amusing sayings, and laissez-faire perspective on life.

August 2007
1 hr. 46 min.
Cast: Steve Buscemi, Michael Pitt, Alison Lohman, Gina Gershon, Callie Thorne
Director: Tom DiCillo
Genre: Satire, Comedy

Times and locations for Delirious at Fandango.com

Death at a Funeral

Sid Smith, a reviewer for the LA Times that I don't recall seeing before, emblazons "Death at a Funeral" with a "Recommended" title, writing:

This film is lethal farce, combining hints of "The Lavender Hill Mob," doses of Joe Orton and a smidgen of the Farrelly brothers' scatology in its mix. It's sillier but funnier than "Knocked Up," the summer's other notable comedy. Plopped on Agatha Christie-like terrain and featuring a mostly English cast -- British-born director Frank Oz of Muppet renown is at the helm -- the movie has a transoceanic pearl in the form of actor Alan Tudyk, a Texas-born off-Broadway veteran who had a small part in "Knocked Up" as a TV boss. A man must deal with his unruly British family as he tries to make his father's funeral a perfect event. (Death at a Funeral - LA Times - Sid Smith)

On the morning of their father's funeral, the family and friends of the deceased each arrive with his or her own roiling anxieties. The son, Daniel, knows he will have to face his flirty, blow-hard, famous-novelist brother Robert, who's just flown in from New York--not to mention the promises of a new life he's made to his wife Jane. Meanwhile, Daniel's cousin Martha and her dependable new fiancé Simon are desperate to make a good impression on Martha's uptight father--a plan that literally goes out the window when Simon accidentally ingests a designer drug en route to the service, leaving him prone to uncontrollable bouts of delirium and nudity in front of his potential in-laws. Then comes the real shocker: a mysterious guest who threatens to unveil an earth-shattering family secret. It is now up to the two brothers to hide the truth from their family and friends, and figure out how to not only bury their dearly beloved, but also the secret he's been keeping.

August 2007
1 hr. 30 min.
R
Cast: Matthew MacFadyen, Keeley Hawes, Andy Nyman, Ewen Bremner, Daisy Donovan
Director: Frank Oz
Genre: Black Comedy, Farce, Comedy, Ensemble Film

The Bourne Ultimatum

Carina Chocano of the LA Times raves about The Bourne Ultimatum in her capsule review that gives the movie a "Recommended" award:

It says something about Paul Greengrass' directing style that he's able to make a movie as fresh and frank as "The Bourne Ultimatum" from a genre as moldy and bombastic as the spy thriller. And yet the profusion of frantic shots never feels like showboating, and the closeness never feels claustrophobic. His camera may scurry and dart like a rabbit trapped in a mall, but he keeps the tone grounded, the effects in-camera and the acting low-key and real. Greengrass brings a degree of honesty to a completely implausible fantasy that's remarkable. Of course, Matt Damon helps, too.

All he wanted was to disappear. Instead, Jason Bourne (Matt Damon) is now hunted by the people who made him what he is. Having lost his memory and the one person he loved, he is undeterred by the barrage of bullets and a new generation of highly-trained killers. Bourne has only one objective: to go back to the beginning and find out who he was. He must travel from Moscow, Paris, Madrid and London to Tangier and New York City as he continues his quest to find the real Jason Bourne—all the while trying to outmaneuver the scores of cops, federal officers and Interpol agents with him in their crosshairs.

Release Date: August 2007
1 hr. 51 min.
PG-13
Cast: Matt Damon, Julia Stiles, David Strathairn, Joan Allen, Scott Glenn, Paddy Considine, Albert Finney
Director: Paul Greengrass
Genre: Action Thriller, Spy Film, Action

Times and locations for The Bourne Ultimatum from Fandango

Wordplay

Kevin Crust of the LA Times writes of "Wordplay":

What else would a guy who majored in enigmatology — the study of puzzles — end up doing in life but become the New York Times Crossword editor? Will Shortz, a graduate of Indiana University where he designed his own curriculum, is also a regular Sunday morning National Public Radio contributor, director of the American Crossword Puzzle Tournament and the subject of Patrick Creadon and Christine O'Malley's delightful documentary, "Wordplay."

Cleverly constructed, the film profiles Shortz and an interesting cross-section of players, explicates the activity's brain-twister appeal and chronicles the down-to-the-wire excitement of the 2005 tournament — the Super Bowl of rossword.

Kevin Crust's review of Wordplay

Release Date: June 2006
1 hr. 34 min.
Rated PG
Cast: Will Shortz, Merl Reagle, Jon Stewart, Ken Burns, Indigo Girls
Director: Patrick Creadon
Genre: Biography, Hobbies, Crafts & Games, Culture & Society

12:08 East of Bucharest

12:08 East of Bucharest gets an "also recommended" prize from LA Times reviewer Kenneth Turan. In his capsule review he writes: "The most unlikely subjects make for the most deliciously comic films, and that's just the case with this Romanian film, winner of the Camera d'Or at Cannes..."

Synopsis: December 22. It's been 16 years since the Revolution and Christmas is approaching. Pisconi, an old retiree, is preparing to spend another lonely Christmas. Manescu, a history teacher, doesn't want to lose his entire salary to pay his debts. Jderescu, the owner of the local TV station, doesn't seem very interested in vacation. With Piscoci and Manescu's help, he wants to find an answer to a 16-year-old question: "Did a revolution really take place in their city?"

Release Date: June 2007 1 hr. 29 min.
Cast: Mircea Andreescu, Teo Corban, Ion Sapdaru
Director: Corneliu Porumboiu
Genre: Comedy

Pierrot le Fou

Kevin Thomas gave this 1965 Jean Luc Godard film the critics' choice mantel in last Sunday's La Times. In his capsule review he writes:

This is the pivotal 1965 jean-Luc Godard film in which the iconoclastic filmmaker moves toward his apocalyptic essay from that adheres to the present. His twist on the reality vs. fantasy take is to make the viewer constantly aware that it is fantasy that he or she is watching, a stance that yields layered meanings and intricate implications. What is "real" in the film which has an intellectual (Jean-Paul Belmondoz) mired in bourgeois luxury running off
with enchanting gun runner Anna Karina, is Godard's frustration and pain at losing Karina, who had left him before making this film.

Bergman and Antonioni Die on the Same Day

Two of the great directors of art film, Ingmar Bergman and Michelangelo Antonioni, died on Monday July 30th, 2007. I recall so clearly seeing Bergman's "Fanny and Alexander" in my mid-20s and being so moved by this movie. Perhaps it was my own strict religious upbringing that made this movie resonate so much with me. Whatever it was, it was from this point on that I was fascinated by the films of Ingmar Bergman.

Here is a complete list of the work of Ingmar Bergman for both the big and small screens:

• 1945 Kris (Crisis), an adaptation of a drama by Leck Fischer
• 1946 Det Regnar på Vår Kärlek (It Rains on Our Love)
• 1947 Skepp till Indialand (A Ship Bound for India)
• 1948 Musik i Mörker (Night Is My Future)
• 1948 Hamnstad (Port of Call) 1949 Fängelse (The Devil's Wanton)
• 1949 Törst (Three Strange Loves)
• 1949 Till Glädje (To Joy)
• 1950 Sommarlek (Summer Interlude)
• 1950 Sånt Händer Inte Här (This Can't Happen Here)
• 1952 Kvinnors Väntan (Secrets of Women)
• 1953 Sommaren med Monika (Summer with Monika)
• 1953 Gycklarnas Afton (Sawdust and Tinsel/The Naked Night)
• 1954 En Lektion i Kärlek (A Lesson in Love)
• 1955 Sommarnattens Leende (Smiles of a Summer Night)
• 1957 Det Sjunde Inseglet (The Seventh Seal
• 1957 Smultronstället (Wild Strawberries)
• 1957 Nära Livet (Brink of Life)
• 1958 Ansiktet (The Magician)
• 1960 Jungfrukällan (The Virgin Spring)
• 1960 Djävulens Öga (The Devil's Eye)
• 1961 Såsom i en Spegel (Through a Glass Darkly)
• 1962 Nattvardsgästerna (Winter Light)
• 1963's Tystnaden (The Silence)
• 1964 För Att Inte Tala om Alla Dessa Kvinnor (All These Women)
• 1968's Vargtimmen (Hour of the Wolf)
• 1968 Skammen (Shame)
• 1969's En Passion (The Passion of Anna) - his first film in color
• 1972 Viskningar och Rop (Cries and Whispers)
• 1975 The Magic Flute - made for TV
• 1976 Ansikte mot Ansikte (Face to Face) - made for TV
• 1977 The Serpent's Egg 1978 Autumn Sonata
• 1980 Aus dem Leben der Marionetten (From the Life of the Marionettes)
• 1982 Fanny och Alexander (Fanny & Alexander)- Oscar winner
• 1984 Efter Repetitionen (After the Rehearsal) - TV
• 1985 The Blessed Ones - TV
• 1992 Den Goda Viljan (The Best Intentions) filmed for television by Bille August, script by Bergman
• 1996 Larmar och Gör Sig Till (In the Presence of a Clown)- TV
• 2003 Saraband - TV

Awards

Academy Awards
In 1971, Bergman received The Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award at the Academy Awards ceremony.

Three of his films have won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film: The Virgin Spring in 1961; Through a Glass Darkly in 1962; and Fanny and Alexander in 1984.

Nominated: Best Original Screenplay, Smultronstället (1960)
Nominated: Best Original Screenplay, Såsom i en spegel (1963)
Nominated: Best Original Screenplay, Viskningar och rop (1974)
Nominated: Best Picture, Viskningar och rop (1974)
Nominated: Best Director, Viskningar och rop (1974)
Nominated: Best Director, Ansikte mot ansikte (1977)
Nominated: Best Original Screenplay, Höstsonaten (1979)
Nominated: Best Original Screenplay, Fanny och Alexander (1984)
Nominated: Best Director, Fanny och Alexander (1984)

BAFTA Awards
Nominated: Best Film from any Source, Ansiktet (1960)
Nominated: Best Foreign Film, Fanny och Alexander (1984)

Cesar Awards
Nominated: Best Foreign Film, Trollflöjten (1976)
Nominated: Best Foreign Film, Höstsonaten (1979)
Won: Best Foreign Film, Fanny och Alexander (1984)
Nominated: Best European Film, Saraband (2005)

Cannes Film Festival
Won: Best Poetic Humor Sommarnattens leende (1955)
Nominated: Golden Palm Sommarnattens leende (1955)
Won: Jury Special prize Det Sjunde inseglet (1957)
Nominated: Golden Palm Det Sjunde inseglet (1957)
Won: Best Director Nära livet (1958)
Nominated: Golden Palm Nära livet (1958)
Won: Special Mention Jungfrukällan (1960)
Nominated: Golden Palm Jungfrukällan (1960)
Won: Technical Grand Prize Viskningar och rop (1972)
Won: Palm of Palms (1997)
Won: Prize of the Ecumenical Jury (1998) (Special award for his whole works.)

Golden Globe Awards
Nominated: Best Director, Fanny och Alexander (1984)