Rick's Flicks Picks on AWN

I usually don't bring up ratings in film reviews, but parents should know that this is a PG-13 animated film, and that's a wonderful thing, but unless you want to give your little ones nightmares, don't let them see this until they are older. Director Shane Acker originally created this post-apocalyptic sci-fi story as a student short, which was later nominated for an Oscar. Working with screenwriter Pamela Pettler, they have expanded this into one of the most alive, adult, emotional, and bad ass animated films I've seen out of America in well… decades.

In a world where all the humans have died off, scrap yard constructed machines roam the Earth. A scientist (Alan Oppenheimer, TV's TRANSFORMERS) has created nine living burlap dolls, perfecting the design with each one. #9 (Elijah Wood, LORD OF THE RINGS) has just come alive and meets #2 (Martin Landau, ED WOOD), who is out in the world searching for something lost. He's a resourceful little guy. But they're being hunted by a vicious skull-headed machine that imprisons #2.

Errol Morris's follow-up to his GATES OF HEAVEN is even more enigmatic than that classic documentary. The origin of this film defers depending on what you read. He went to Vernon to develop a film about retirement communities and/or people who cut off limbs for insurance money. Whether the eccentrics he found were more interesting than the retirees or his life was threatened by the "Nub City" scammers, he ended up with this film that means something different to everyone or even every time you see it.

At under an hour, the film is brisk. It's simply a collection of eccentrics from the town of Vernon. Some have developed unique philosophies on life based on lifelong observations and others have based ideas on misinterpreted facts. One man believes that when you have all four "balls" of the brain working at the same time you can do four separate actions at the same time. A very earnest couple take an interesting idea away from their trip to the desert where they were told that one dune (pronounced done) grows 14 feet per year.

Cystic fibrosis is a genetic disorder where the sufferer's lungs produce an excessive amount of mucus. Nowadays CF sufferers only live till their mid-30s. When Bob Flanagan was born in 1952, people with CF rarely lived into their 20s. Bob lived to be 43. This arresting documentary about his life and art seems to claim that extreme masochism helped keep him alive.

Director Kirby Dick followed Flanagan for several years chronicling his stand-up comedy, performance art, installation exhibits and personal life. At an early age, Flanagan began experimenting with masochism, evolving into more and more extreme behavior as he got older. When he met Sheree Rose, he found his soul mate. She became his lover and dominatrix. Dick remarkably makes the couple likable and understandable in the face of some bleeding-edge fetishes.

The saying goes in Hollywood – never work with kids or animals. Well, don't tell director John Sayles he can't do something. For this delightful family film, he does both and weaves a magical tale steeped in Irish folk lore.

When her mother dies, 10-year-old Fiona (Jeni Courtney, 1998's BABY DOLL) goes to live with her grandparents on the Irish seaside. Her family -   her grandfather (Mick Lally, ALEXANDER), grandmother (Eileen Colgan, ANGELA'S ASHES) and cousin Eamon (Richard Sheridan) – work the sea and miss the days when the whole clan lived on the island of Roan Inish, where it is rumored that selkies, half-seal/half-humans, live. Most of her family is blonde, but every once in a while a dark one comes out. Her cousin Tadhg (John Lynch, THE SECRET GARDEN) is one of the dark ones, and tells her, with complete sincerity, the family legend of her great-great grandfather marrying a selkie. Her little brother, who was washed out to sea in his bassinette as a baby, was also a dark one, and when she visits Roan Inish she believes she sees him.

With the release of STATE OF PLAY on DVD and Blu-ray this week, This Weekend's Film Festival sets out to look at five films that present journalism on the screen. Films like Alan J. Pakula's ALL THE PRESIDENT'S MEN, Sidney Lumet's NETWORK, and James L. Brooks' BROADCAST NEWS are just a few of the classics that have showed the good and bad sides of journalism. For our lineup, we look at the changing nature of journalism. How reporters can help right wrongs. The ruthlessness of the newspaper business in a comical way. The ethical responsibility of reporters. And of course their bravery to get to the bottom of dangerous, but important, stories.

STATE OF PLAY is actually a remake of a British miniseries of the same name. But director Kevin Macdonald and writers Matthew Michael Carnahan (LIONS FOR LAMBS), Tony Gilroy (MICHAEL CLAYTON) and Billy Ray (SHATTERED GLASS) have transformed the film into a contemporary look at the changing nature of journalism. Cal McAffrey (Russell Crowe) is a veteran reporter who is under pressure from his editor Cameron Lynne (Helen Mirren) to turn around stories as quickly as the young bloggers like Della Frye (Rachel McAdams). McAffrey doesn't want to print rumor and conjecture, but wants to put in the hours to get to the bottom of a story. And a big story has just broke. The assistant of the bright young congressman Stephen Collins (Ben Affleck) has been murdered. Sex, political back dealings with weapons manufacturers and fraud are all part of the story. But McAffrey is old friends with Collins, so where does his loyalty to his friends and to the truth start and stop? Remarkably, the film shows a journalist working a story to its end, whether the story goes where he wants it to or not. To quote my original review, "[The film's] most important point is that in journalism, the most important part of the job is getting the story right, not first. But if you can get it right and first, that’s even better."

EARTH Review

This is the kind of the film meant to show off the HD TV and Blu-ray player. This gorgeous looking documentary is filled with bird's eye wide shots that would be a muddy mess on a small standard TV on DVD. 1080p brings out the vibrant colors of the natural world captured on this film beautifully. The neon colors of the birds of paradise seem unnatural. The view capturing the deep greens of jungles as the camera floats down a river and over Angel Falls is awe-inspiring. Complimenting the gorgeous pictures, the 5.1 surround sound puts us into the environments with the wild animals. In a wonderful nighttime shoot where elephants and lions face off, the sound field makes us feel like you're surrounded by hungry felines.

Based on Frances Hodgson Burnett's children's classic, the film version was brought to the screen by Polish director Agnieszka Holland (EUROPA, EUROPA). Like some of the best family films, the story might have children at its center, but it's not just a story for children. This magical story about inner healing can touch the oldest in the crowd as well.

Mary Lennox (Kate Maberly, FINDING NEVERLAND) had a privileged life living in India. She had servants waiting on her hand and foot. But she wasn't happy. Her parents paid little attention to her. Then, when they are murdered, she's forced to move to her uncle's estate in England. He, Lord Archibald Craven (John Lynch, IN THE NAME OF THE FATHER), isn't any more attentive to her than her parents. He's been grief-stricken since the death of his wife and the following illness that has keep his son Colin (Heydon Prowse, only screen performance) bedridden.

So here is Rick's Flicks Picks' annual most anticipated films of the fall season list. It's not a perfect list. Some of the films will turn out to be duds, and some other films (think SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE) will pop up late in the game to become some of the best films of the year. And some might not open this fall season at all. We've already lost Martin Scorsese's SHUTTER ISLAND to February. So without further ado here are the films to watch out for in the season for serious movie fans.

Must-See List
9 (Sept. 9)
Trailer
It's unfair to rank a four-star movie on a list with films I have not seen yet. Shane Acker's 9 is one of the most original animated films I've seen in quite a long time. With UP, PONYO and CORALINE already released this year and with 9 on the horizon, 2009 is quickly shaping up to be one of the best years for animated features ever. This post-apocalyptic story where twisted creations of man are all that is left living and one named "9" holds the key to what remains of humanity is one of the best films of the year. Go see it.

On the Look Out
This is a new feature of the anticipated list. These are a few films rumored to be coming out in the fall that do not have firm release dates yet. It's a cheat, but it's my freakin' list.

When I first heard that Rob Zombie was remaking John Carpenter's classic horror film HALLOWEEN, I thought he was either one of three things — terribly gutsy, completely arrogant or monumentally stupid. Now having seen the film, I can say he was the first. When approaching a remake of this classic, he did everything that could be asked of him in being true to the original, while expanding on it in new and interesting ways. His reverence for the material shows his love for Michael Myers. However, his love for Michael Myers is also the film's undoing to some degree.

Unlike the original, Zombie's film takes us deeper inside the mind of Michael Myers, played as a child by Daeg Faerch and as an adult by Tyler Mane. As a child, Michael was tormented by kids at school, but his taste for comeuppance is bloody and cruel. His home life is not stable at all with his white trash mother Deborah (Sheri Moon Zombie, THE DEVIL'S REJECTS) constantly fighting with her deadbeat boyfriend Ronnie White (Robert Forsythe, THE DEVIL'S REJECTS). His older sister Judith (Hanna Hall, FORREST GUMP) is a crude teen who is only interested in sex and boys… in that order. On Halloween night, he snaps and goes on a murder spree that lands him in an asylum. While under the care of the kind doctor Samuel Loomis (Malcolm McDowell, A CLOCKWORK ORANGE), he sinks further and further into a world of his own and becomes more disturbed as his time in confinement grows.

In the spirit of his BRIEF ENCOUNTER, David Lean directs this bittersweet romance, starring Katharine Hepburn, with maturity and sophistication. Based on Arthur Laurents' play, the premise is simple, but Lean, along with co-screenwriter H.E. Bates, finds ways to surprise us. Just like the way the characters have of surprising each other.

Jane Hudson (Hepburn, THE AFRICAN QUEEN) is a girl (every woman in America under 50 refers to herself as a girl) from Akron, Ohio, who has saved her whole life to take a trip to Venice, Italy. She's looking for that something that has been missing from her life. But like so often is the case, the fantasy we pursue is easy to want, it's the first leap that's tough. Jane views herself as the independent type, but she is deeply lonely. She's looking for romance, but is scared when shop owner Renato de Rossi (Rossano Brazzi, THE BAREFOOT CONTESSA) takes an interest in her. She's scared of everything actually. Scared that the romance isn't what she imagined. Scared that it might just be better than she ever thought.

Not a great amount of buzz this week, but the buzz that we have is big. Animated flick from Rob Zombie. Interesting docs — one on advertising and one from Michael Moore. A remake of a horror classic. And James Cameron's return.

Getting Buzzed
5) The Haunted World of El Superbeasto (Sept. 22, 2009)
Trailer
Word is that this trailer doesn't scratch the surface of how insane Rob Zombie's devious animated film really is. Voice cast includes Tom Papa, Sheri Moon Zombie, Rosario Dawson, Brian Posehn and Paul Giamatti as Dr. Satan. The last one has me sold.

4) Art & Copy (Aug. 21, 2009)
Trailer
Call me weird but I've always been fascinated with how things are marketed to people. How are ads manipulating us? This documentary talks with some of the legends of creative advertising. Someone had to come up with "Where's the beef?' you know.