Category: Film & TV

Are they great, terrible, or both? You figure it out. Links go to Netflix.

Flu Birds. A tight-knit group of teens find themselves fighting for their lives when unexpected visitors — a flock of flesh-eating birds infected by a malicious virus — crash their carefree camping trip in the woods. With each deadly swoop, the flying predators are spreading their dangerous strain and transforming the locals into bird feed. Can a shrinking group of survivors fight back and reclaim the skies?

Bludgeoning Angel Dokuro Chan. Sakura Kusakabe is destined to invent an immortality-granting technology that will cause all women to stop aging when they turn 12. Fearing a pedophilia outbreak, God sends his angelic assassin Dokuro-chan to prevent Sakura from completing his work. The angel adopts a nonviolent strategy to containing Sakura, but her short temper causes her to kill him — and revive him — again and again in this unique anime treat.

Kenny. Porta-loo deliveryman Kenny Smyth (Shane Jacobson) is probably one of the most underappreciated professionals on the planet. But without him, this much is true: There’d be a lot more crap to deal with. In a comedy of excremental proportions, Kenny makes his rounds with his dedicated Splashdown crew and ultimately finds himself at the mother of all waste management sites — the International Pumper and Cleaner Expo in Nashville.

Hell on Wheels. Indie filmmaker Bob Ray delivers a high-octane documentary that charts the revival of modern-day roller derby, beginning with the feisty group of women from Austin, Texas, who started it all back in 2001. The film’s soundtrack features original music by …And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead, Explosions in the Sky, Mogwai, Grupo Fantasma, RPG, Nashville Pussy, Alice Donut, the Crack Pipes, U.S.S. Friendship and more.

Taxi to the Dark Side. Just days after an Afghan taxi driver picked up three passengers and never returned home, he wound up dead at Bagram Air Base, killed by injuries inflicted by U.S. soldiers. Interviews, news footage and firsthand reports provide a gripping look at the case and the Bush administration’s policy on torture. Alex Gibney (Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room) directs this Best Documentary winner for the 2008 Oscars.

Jellyfish. The stories of three disparate women intersect at a Tel Aviv wedding. Newly single Batiya (Sarah Adler) works with the catering crew; Filipina Joy (Ma-nenita De Latorre) attends the event as the caregiver of an elderly woman; and the bride (Noa Knoller) sees her honeymoon dreams go up in smoke. Directed by popular Israeli novelist Etgar Keret and his screenwriter wife, Shira Geffen, the film won the Camera d’Or at Cannes.

Just too many titles to be curious about this week. Are they great, terrible, or both? You figure it out.

Savage Streets. When a gang’s harmless prank leads to the brutal sexual assault of her deaf little sister, Heather, and the murder of her best friend, Francine, Brenda (Linda Blair) takes matters into her own hands. Hitting the streets of Los Angeles, Brenda seeks justice with the help of bear traps and a hunting crossbow. John Vernon, Linnea Quigley and Robert Dryer co-star in this Charles Bronson-esque revenge thriller from director Danny Steinmann.

10,000 A.D.: The Legend of the Black Pearl. In a postapocalyptic world, rival human tribes, the Plaebians and Hurons, face extinction by the evil Sinasu. Trained by the mighty warrior Ergo (Raul Gasteazoro), young Huron Kurupi (Julian Perez), mankind’s greatest hope for survival, embarks on a journey to crush the enemy. But to defeat this powerful and often unseen foe, the Plaebians and Hurons must ultimately put their differences aside and join forces.

Dororo. In exchange for a seat of power, Kagemitsu Daigo (Kiichi Nakai) pledged 48 body parts from his unborn son, Hyakkimaru (Satoshi Tsumabuki), to 48 demons. Now a mighty Samurai warrior out for revenge, Hyakkimaru crosses paths with a young thief named Dororo (Kou Shibasaki). With Dororo by his side, Hyakkimaru grows more complete with every demon he vanquishes. Hitori Gekidan co-stars in this live-action adaptation of Tezuka Osamu’s manga.

Weenie Roast Massacre. Mentally disabled Marty Flaherty (David Prouty) watches an innocent gathering with his friends take a bloody turn in this slasher flick. Following a debilitating accident, Marty, a once-promising high school football star, is resigned to living an uneventful life in his parents’ home. When his friends organize a weenie roast to lift his spirits, the event turns deadly once a mysterious psychopath begins picking off the partygoers one by one.

Foot Fist Way. A pompous control freak, small-town tae kwon do instructor Mr. Simmons (Danny McBride) finally loses his cool when he gets wind of his wife’s infidelities. Facing meltdown, he sets out on a pilgrimage to see his hero, martial arts master Chuck “The Truck” Wallace (Ben Best), in action. But is the world ready for a meeting between these two black-belt egos? Expertly drawn characters and furious action make this a comedy that really packs a punch.

Alien Private Eye. Lemro (Nikki Fastinetti), a pointy-eared private dick from the planet Styx, takes a vacation on Earth, where he’s quickly drawn into interplanetary intrigue involving the recovery of an ancient Egyptian disc. On top of that, he’s also tasked with taking down a galactic crime organization in this sci-fi action adventure written and directed by Vik Rubenfeld.

This American Life, Season One. Ira Glass’s public radio show makes the transition to television with its focus intact (and netting three Emmy nods in the process), telling uniquely American tales through anecdotes and personal reflections. Glass, director Christopher Wilcha and the rest of the crew spent six months on the road compiling these stories, which take viewers from Iowa’s pig farms (where the “perfect” swine is being bred) to a Chicago hot dog stand.

Cinematographer Style. Cinematographer Jon Fauer interviews 110 of his colleagues — including Vittorio Storaro (Apocalypse Now), Roger Deakins (No Country for Old Men) and Gordon Willis (The Godfather) — on their approach to the craft of motion picture photography. Shot on 35mm film and accessible to anyone who loves movies, the absorbing documentary reveals how style, experience and inspiration combine to make movies look the way they do.

Liberia: An Uncivil War. Filmmaker Jonathan Stack provides a fearless account of the Liberian civil war in 2003, chronicling the showdown between the corrupt regime of President Charles Taylor and the Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy. Meanwhile, tens of thousands of civilians pray for intervention by the United States, which has become newly preoccupied by the Iraq War. Stack’s unflinching film is an unforgettable portrait of a country in crisis.

FEAR(S) OF THE DARK is a wildly inventive and visually dazzling collection of fearful tales by six of the world’s most renowned comic and graphic artists – Blutch, Charles Burns, Marie Caillou, Pierre Di Sciullo, Lorenzo Mattotti, and Richard McGuire. From a besotted student whose girlfriend is weirdly ardent in her affections, to a Japanese schoolgirl menaced by a long-dead samurai, and a pack of hounds on a bloodthirsty rampage, FEAR(S) has a story strand to trouble every sleep – not to mention a stunning range of animation styles. Shot in shimmering black and white, the six intertwined tales create an unprecedented epic where phobias and nightmares come to life and reveal Fear at its most naked and intense.

Check it out here.

The result, which has already been widely hailed as Rourke’s career-capping/redefining/resuscitating turn, is a characterization of rare intensity and pathos that bristles with the lived-in authority of someone who knows what it means to live with his back against the ropes. “I’ve seen this side of life. Unfortunately, I’ve seen this side of life,” Rourke sighs. As you watch the Ram onscreen — reduced to working the deli counter of a New Jersey supermarket after a heart attack takes him out of the ring, playing the electronic avatar of himself in an ’80s-era Nintendo wrestling game — the line between performer and performance all but disappears. Finally, we’re left with the sense Rourke has always given in his best work, of an actor who so thoroughly immerses himself in a role that he isn’t merely playing the character but living it, moment by moment, from the second he gets up in the morning until he goes to bed at night.

Check it out here.

Winner of the Grand Jury Prize at the 2008 Sundance Film Festival, this astonishingly powerful documentary is at once horrifying and exhilarating. Directed and produced by Fahrenheit 9/11and Bowling for Columbineproducers Tia Lessin and Carl Deal, Trouble the Watertakes you inside Hurricane Katrina in a way never before seen on screen.

Check it out here.

In a graphic and hard-hitting film Peter Beaumont speaks to Palestinians filming abuse from settlers and Israeli armed forces

Check it out here.

From Universal we have your first look at a new Comic Con photo for the remake of Land of the Lost. Will Ferrell is going to star in the remake of Land of the Lost, according to Amazon.com  Land of the Lost was a staple of Saturday morning television in the 1970s, LAND OF THE LOST has subsequently achieved cult status, largely due to a strong word-of-mouth campaign.

Check it out here.

Saturday afternoon I checked my mailbox and found a package from a reader named Lindsey full of t-shirts silkscreened with images of the characters from Land of the Lost.

Check it out here.

Director Milcho Manchevski explores the circle of violence that pervades the Balkans and the way ethnic bloodshed can spill over into more “civilized” countries. Photographer Aleksandar (Rade Serbedzija) is wracked with guilt for having caused a man’s death while covering the war in Bosnia. Now, he intends to leave England and his lover (Katrin Cartlidge) for Macedonia in hopes of making amends in the violently unstable country of his birth.

Check it out here.