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" Planet B-Boy considers the international resurgence of breakdancing and closely follows five of the most prominent teams from Korea, Japan, France, and the US as they prepare for the annual Battle of the Year (aka the 'World Cup' of b-boying) at its home base in Braunschweig, Germany, which is attended by 10,000 spectators." Cathleen Rountree talked with director Benson Lee, and the film is now out on DVD.
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In This Dispatch:
- What's New: Hellboy II, Liberty Kid and much more.
- What We're Watching: Death Defying Acts, Christmas on Mars, Mojave Phone Booth.
- Explore: Morricone's Bday.
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While Guillermo Del Toro's follow-up to the first film won't win the year end awards and acclaim that his Pan's Labyrinth did, we think it's just as imaginative and, frankly, more fun. "Del Toro is almost alone in his ability to re-create on screen the wide-eyed exhilaration and disturbing grotesqueness that is the legacy of reading comics on the page," wrote Kenneth Turan. Adds Entertainment Weekly: "[D]azzles like something out of Jason and the Argonauts. To make a comic-book fantasy this derivative yet this dazzling requires more than technique. It takes a director in touch with his inner hellboy." |
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"There’s not a single wrong note in Liberty Kid, Ilya Chaiken’s poignant drama about marginal lives strained to breaking by the aftermath of Sept. 11", wrote Jeanette Catsoulis in the NY Times. "Tender, wise and deceptively low-key." Adds Nathan Lee in the Village Voice: "[E]levates that woeful genre, the 9/11 movie, by keeping a Wire-worthy ear to the street talk of south Williamsburg and maintaining a shrewd balance of the personal and the political." |
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Australian director Gillian Armstrong has had an interesting career in which she's tackled various genres (musical: Starstruck; wartime: Charlotte Gray; prison break/love story: Mrs Soffel; family dramas: High Tide, The Last Days of Chez Nous; classic adaptation: Little Women); all, except the latter classic, handled in her own interestingly off-kilter manner. Yet Armstrong has not made as immense an impression since her first big film – My Brilliant Career, which helped launch the international careers (one brilliant, the other very good) of Judy Davis and Sam Neill. Here comes this talented director again, this time with a rather lavishly budgeted story that tracks the nearing of the end of Harry Houdini's career and the further burnishing of his legend... Read more >> |
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Fans of the band Flaming Lips and fans of oddball sci-fi will both want to check out this, the directing debut of Lips' frontman Wayne Coynes.Aaron Hillis in the Village Voice calls it "a true DIY labor of love that doesn't trade on the band's cult status; it succeeds (and fails) by its own weirdness. On its mostly monochromatic, ultra-grainy 16mm surface, Christmas on Mars looks like Eraserhead via John Carpenter's Dark Star, a broodingly absurdist sci-fi fable set on the newly colonized red planet." Adds the NY Times: "As for the soundtrack, fans of the excellent Lips album 'Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots' will know the dreamy ambience to expect. Dude, pass the munchies." |
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This indie film became a bit of a minor cult phenom due to word of mouth, though it's only now making its way to DVD. An ensemble movie comprised of a series of vignettes set around the titular desert pay phone. FilmThreat's Don Lewis writes: "there’s much more to Mojave Phone Booth than a bunch of people running around being misunderstood. Namely, the film is really funny. While each vignette has a serious side, there's also some truly classic moments peppered in that bring a light touch to some serious topics. The acting in the film is also very good." And that oddball ensemble includes Annabeth Gish, Missi Pyle... and Steve Guttenberg! |
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Veterans Day
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