In "13 Tzameti," one surprise triggers another in ever-spiraling fashion.
Yet it is already clear in its deceptively low-key opening sequences why
this extraordinary film, written and directed by young Georgia-born Gela
Babluani, took the best first feature prize at Venice in 2005 and the grand
jury world cinema award at Sundance earlier this year...Kevin
Thomas, LA Times
Suspense/Thriller
Note: Definitely not for kids
Géla Babluani
Georges Babluani, Aurelien Recoing, Pascal Bongard
He was a writer. He thought he wrote about the future but it really was the
past. In his novel, a mysterious train left for 2046 every once in a while.
Everyone who went there had the same intention.....to recapture their lost
memories. It was said that in 2046, nothing ever changed. Nobody knew for
sure if it was true, because nobody who went there had ever come back-
except for one. He was there. He chose to leave. He wanted to change.
Hugh Grant plays Martin Tweed, the slick, self-loathing host of a top-rated
talent show called "American Dreamz." The chief of staff (Willem Dafoe) of
the newly re-elected, low-approval-rated President Staton (Dennis Quaid)
offers the president as a guest judge on its finale.
Partly based on a true story, tells how a salesman failing to achieve the
American Dream, believes the entire world, right up to the President, is
against him.
Drama
Niels Mueller
Sean Penn...Sam Bicke
Naomi Watts...Marie
Don Cheadle...Bonny
Jack Thompson...Jack Jones
Michael Wincott...Julius Bicke
Babel, which won the best director award at Cannes, ties together four
seemingly unconnected stories that are eventually reveled to be inextricably
linked to one another.
Two kids, Ignacio and Enrique, discover love, cinema and fear in a religious
school at the start of the '60s. Father Manolo, the school principal and
their literature teacher, is witness to and part of these discoveries. The
three characters meet twice again, at the end of the '70s and in the '80s.
The reencounter will mark the life and death of some of them.
Art House/Foreign, Drama
Pedro Almodvar
Gael García Bernal...Angel
Fele Martínez...Enrique
Javier Cámara...Paquito
Daniel Giménez-Cacho...Father Manolo
Lluís Homar...Sr. Berenguer
This ode to the revolutionay 20th-century dance troupe known as the Ballets
Russes examines a group of Russian refugees who had never danced in Russia.
Nevertheless, they became two rival dance troupes that fought the famous
"ballet battles" that took London society by storm.
Kenneth Turan of the LA Times writes: "A captivating film that truly
elevates the spirit, "Ballets Russes" is the most emotionally satisfying
documentary since "Mad Hot Ballroom." Is it a coincidence that both deal
with dance? Maybe, but maybe not. For though dance exists in the moment
and..."
Balzac and the Little Chinese Princess unfolds the story of two boys, who
just like hundreds of thousands at the height of the Mao's infamous cultural
revolution, were exiled to the countryside for "re-education", something
that actually happened to director Dai Sijie during the Chinese cultural
revolution in 1966-1971.
A Parisian man decides he wants to alter his gloomy fate through music.
Kenneth Turan of the LA Times writes: "What has resulted is a blistering
film you feel in the pit of your stomach, a jumpy, edgy piece of work that
thrusts us into a personal maelstrom so tortured and intense, the emotions
could be spread with a knife. With Romain Duris indelible as protagonist
Tom, "The Beat" cuts to the bone emotionally and refuses to flinch."
Binh, a shy Vietnamese man in his 20s who embarks on a personal journey
aboard a refugee ship to America in search of a better life and Binh's
estranged American father.
Kevin Thomas writes: "It is a straightforward, conventional narrative,
charting seemingly endless cruelty and hardship, but rewards the patient
with an eloquent climactic sequence that is impossible to predict..."
Art House/Foreign, Drama
Hans Petter Moland
Damien Nguyen, Kirk Griffith, Xuan Phuc Dins, Phyllis Cicero
By Kevin Thomas, Times Staff Writer
"Sixty years after the end of World War II, Germany's Third Reich continues
to inspire remarkable films that are both of their time and timeless. A
potent example, Dennis Gansel's "Before the Fall" commands attention from
its very first frame and never. . ."
Filmmakers bring depth and humor to writer W. Somerset Maugham's 1930s tale
of a stage star bored with her career
Art House/Foreign, Comedy, Drama
István Szabó
Annette Bening...Julia Lambert
Jeremy Irons...Michael Gosselyn
Michael Gambon...Jimmie Langton
Bruce Greenwood...Lord Charles
Miriam Margolyes...Dolly de Vries
Juliet Stevenson...Evie
Shaun Evans...Tom Fennel
Lucy Punch...Avice Crichton
Matt Damon returns as Jason Bourne, an amnesiac haunted by his past as a
deadly government operative. A smash-and-grab-you-by-the-throat action
flick where style is meaning and that meaning is fast, fast, fast…
Action/Adventure
Paul Greengrass
Matt Damon: Jason Bourne; Joan Allen...Pamela Landy; Franka Potente...Marie;
Brian Cox...Ward Abbott; Julia Stiles...Nicky
Boynton Beach Club
Meeting through a bereavement group, five retired people in South Florida
take tentative steps to re-enter the dating world.
"Broken Sky" is as much choreographed as it is directed, and its actors'
movements, gestures and expressions verge on those of dance. The film is as
formal in structure as it is romantic in its sweep, yet it's a very
disciplined work; never is visual flourish merely for its own effect but to
express the turbulent emotions of its young lovers, which are in turn
underlined by an evocative selection of pop music.
Truman Capote was known for his eccentric personality and mannerisms.
Running in both literary and celebrity circles, the author redefined the
idea of true-crime books with the release of In Cold Blood. Capote
researched the case about a Kansas family murdered by a pair of drifters,
and presented the details of the crime in a narrative way closer to fiction.
Capote became close with the convicted killer, and the lines between
journalism and personal intent were blurred the more involved Capote became.
Drama, Suspense/Thriller
Bennett Miller
Philip Seymour Hoffman, Catherine Keener, Clifton Collins Jr.
Cars
Pixar Animation
Studios (The Incredibles, Finding Nemo) and Academy Award® winning director
John Lasseter (Toy Story, A Bug’s Life) hit the road with a fast-paced
comedy adventure, Cars. Lightning McQueen (voice of Owen Wilson), a hotshot
rookie race car driven to succeed, discovers that life is about the journey,
not the finish line, when he finds himself unexpectedly detoured in the
sleepy Route 66 town of Radiator Springs and meets the town's offbeat
characters including Doc Hudson (voice of Paul Newman), Mater (voice of
Larry the Cable Guy) and Sally (voice of Bonnie Hunt).
Notorious
womanizer Casanova sets his sights on an unattainable prize. With a
reputation for charming the opposite sex regardless of their marital status,
Casanova discovers a beautiful woman who seems impervious to his charms. As
he begins to pursue her, he finds himself falling in love.
In a remote
area of Northern Kenya, the region's most dedicated activist, the
passionate Tessa Quayle (Rachel Weisz), has been found brutally
murdered. Tessa's travelling companion, a local doctor, appears to
have fled the scene, and the evidence points to a crime of passion.
Sandy Woodrow (Danny Huston), Sir Bernard Pellegrin (Bill Nighy), and
the other members of the British High Commission assume that Tessa's
widower, their mild-mannered and unambitious colleague Justin Quayle
(Ralph Fiennes), will leave the matter to their discretion. They could
not be more wrong. This career diplomat's equilibrium has been
exploded by the loss of the woman he was deeply devoted to. Haunted by
remorse and jarred by rumors of his wife's infidelities, Justin
surprises himself by plunging headlong into a dangerous odyssey
Andy is a recent college graduate with big dreams. Upon landing a job at
prestigious Runway magazine, she finds herself the assistant to diabolical
Miranda Priestly. Andy questions her ability to survive her grim tour as
Miranda's whipping girl without getting scorched. Based on the novel by
Lauren Weisberger...review
by LA Times reviewer Carina Chocano
Sometimes a film about nothing can be a film about everything; a film
without overwhelmingly dramatic events can delight you more than an outsized
epic. The sly and disarming "Duck Season" is such a film.
More from LA Times film critic Kenneth Turan
Art House/Foreign; Comedy
Fernando Eimbcke (Mexico)
Enrique Arreola, Diego Cataño, Daniel Miranda
Duma
"In a sane world, there would be dancing in the streets at the arrival of a
film as magical and entertaining as Carroll Ballard's 'Duma.'"- Kenneth
Turan, LA Times
A Kenyan boy finds adventure with his pet cheetah. Xan, a
boy living in Nairobi Kenya with his family, adopts an abandoned cheetah
cub. The two become fast friends, but eventually Xan must take the long
journey across Africa to return his friend to the wilds.
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