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In This Dispatch:
- What's New: District 9, 500 Days of Summer and more.
- What We're Watching: Herb & Dorothy, Extract, Mon Uncle Antoine.
- Explore: Harmony & Me; one more disturbing film.
- Contests and Promos, redux: Me and Orson Welles; Holiday Gift Guide.
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Straight outta South Africa comes this exciting sci-fi film produced by Peter Jackson. Wrote Kirk Honeycutt, "No true fan of science fiction -- or, for that matter, cinema -- can help but thrill to the action, high stakes and suspense built around a very original chase movie." Adds Scott Foundas: " District 9 whizzes by with a resourcefulness and mordant wit nearly worthy of its obvious influences: Invasion of the Body Snatchers, Dawn of the Dead, and Starship Troopers." |
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Marc Webb makes a charming feature debut with "Something seldom seen," writes Michael Ordona in LA Times: "an original romantic comedy." Joseph Gordon-Levitt stars and Zooey Deschanel plays the titular Summer of the doomed romance. "The film does a lovely job of balancing emotional clarity, formal trickery, pop sweetness, and heartfelt narrative," adds Shawn Levy. "It is, yes, cute, and it is, yes, quirky. And it is entirely justified, estimable and loveable in being those things." |
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Art lovers – particularly modern art lovers – will not want to miss Herb & Dorothy, Megumi Sasaki's splendid documentary about the title art-collecting couple. What's so special about them, you ask. There are many collectors throughout the world who do the same. Ah, yes, but they, of course, are rich. Herb and Dorothy Vogel are resoundingly middle-class, but have a passion for art that has resulted in their acquiring the kind of collection most museums would kill for. And they did it all on their middle-class salary and life-style (until their retirements, he worked for the US Post Office, she for the Brooklyn library system)... Read review >> |
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Mike Judge has always presented sophisticated takes on human behavior, but he only recently allowed his anti-heroes to take charge. His fourth movie as a writer-director, Extract, focuses on trouble in suburbia and revolves around a dissatisfied factory owner. This brief synopsis alone should demonstrate the breadth of Judge's thematic journey, but a deeper look reveals its methodical progression... Read more >>
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There's a palpably thick layer of sadness and melancholy that envelops Canadian filmmaker Claude Jutra's Mon Oncle Antoine (1971). A lot of it has to do with the setting; it's Christmas Eve in a small asbestos-mining community in 1940s Quebec, nature is dressed in white, and the workers gather in the town's general store to celebrate the frozen and endless winter in an alcoholic stupor. Nonetheless, as the case often is with films that feature kid protagonists (some obvious exceptions do pop to mind), Antoine is also gentle, charming, and touching... Read review >> |
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Still time to enter! Richard Linklater's Me and Orson Welles is getting some excellent reviews -- especially for newcomer Christian McKay, who does a spot-on Welles. And now thanks to Freestyle Releasing and GreenCine, you can be one of six (6) lucky winners of the excellent book upon which the film is based, in our new contest. Details >>
Last minute gift ideas for that cinephile in your life: GreenCine's Holiday Gift Guide, a smorgasbord of books, DVDs, comics, games, and fantasy-dream-list items. Shop 'til you drop. Gift Guide >> |
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Feeling Beachy
(winter escape list)
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