More Articles By Ed Grant
- This is Tom Jones
TIME-LIFE Street: June 26 Prebook: now > Not unusual vintage '60s variety TV, bolstered by a stellar roster of guests. Another seminal turn-of-the-'60s variety show hits DVD with this eight-show, three-disc representation of the Welsh wonder's three-season (1969-71) ABC series. Hardcore fans will note the “missing” guests that are announced, as the episodes included here are syn... More - Zzyzx
PASSION RIVER Street: June 19 Prebook: now > An oddly-paced slacker rendition of The Hitcher. A thrill killing is the jumping-off point for this strange road thriller/supernatural bloodbath hybrid that is sadly lacking in suspense until the halfway mark. The plot revolves around two stoners who kill a man while driving through the Mojave Desert and their interaction with the dead man’... More - Who Can Kill a Child?
DARK SKY Street: June 26 Prebook: now > Village of the Damned meets Lord of the Flies in this creepy ’70s shocker. A seminal entry in the “creepy kid” horror subgenre, this 1976 Spanish thriller finds two British tourists visiting an island off Spain populated by homicidal young folk. More - You’re Gonna Miss Me
PALM PICTURES/VIVENDI VISUAL Street: July 10 Prebook: June 20 > A psychedelic music pioneer bottoms out and starts the hard climb back in this memorable rockumentary. Psychedelic and garage-rock pioneer Roky Erickson, who headed the band 13th Floor Elevators, is the subject of this alternately harrowing and touching documentary. More - The Stone Merchant
MONARCH Street: June 26 Prebook: June 4 > Romantic intrigue starring Harvey Keitel and F. Murray Abraham as unlikely Al-Qaeda agents. The notion of an old-fashioned, intrigue-driven romance such as Casablanca updated to include Islamic terrorism is a bizarre one, but here we have the odd tale of a dissatisfied English wife (Jane March) who falls in love with a suave Italian (Harvey Keitel)&... More - Four Last Songs
UNION STATION Street: June 26 Prebook: now > Brisk ensemble character comedy, brightened by a picturesque Mediterranean locale. This extremely affable ensemble piece showcases beautiful Mediterranean scenery and a rock-solid cast in a wafer-thin sentimental farce about a lounge pianist (Stanley Tucci) who organizes a tribute to a classical composer. More - Haunted Forest
LIONSGATE Street: June 26 Prebook: May 30 > Stylish woods-bound scarefest influenced by Japanese horror. There’s horror in the woods in this stylish thriller, which has a traditional American scare-scenario overlaid with shocks that one usually sees in “J-horror” flicks. Writer/director Mauro Borrelli has worked as an illustrator and conceptual artist for such hits as Pira... More - Army of Shadows
CRITERION/IMAGE Street: May 15 Prebook: now > Low-key masterwork that chronicles the activities of WWII French resistance fighters. Filmmaker Jean-Pierre Melville, a grand master of the French film noir, struck a perfect balance between suspense and understatement in this 1969 film about the French resistance during World War II. More - The Bridge
KOCH LORBER Street: June 12 Prebook: May 15 > Portrait of suicidal individuals who journey to the Golden Gate Bridge is somber but rewarding. The very difficult twin topics of depression and suicide are examined with much care in this powerful documentary. The focus is on San Francisco's Golden Gate Bridge, which has been a lightning rod for people contemplating suicide. More - Glastonbury
THINKFILM Street: June 12 Prebook: May 17 > An incredible roster of rock acts that plays like an English Woodstock. An extremely potent, nearly free-form collage film, Julien Temple's portrait of the Glastonbury music festival sketches a communal event that appears to be the natural evolution of “Woodstock Nation. More - Dishdogz
LIONSGATE Street: June 12 Prebook: May 16 > A teen flick that features the requisite skateboarding montage every 10 minutes. Skateboard action, and plenty of it, supplies the main lure for young viewers to check out this by-the-numbers teen flick. The plot concerns a teen (Prison Break's Marshall Allman) who joins the kitchen staff at a skating camp and quickly becomes a member of the ̶... More - Last Stand of the 300
A&E Street: July 31 Prebook: July 3 > Ultra-macho history! The reality behind 300 's stirring Battle of Thermopylae. A perfect supplement to the spring box-office smash 300, this enlightening and entertaining A&E special program provides info about the Battle of Thermopylae and the macho rituals of Spartan society. More - Inside Iraq: The Untold Stories
SHIDOG FILMS Available now > Raw, bone-chilling footage from the U.S. occupation, from an un-embedded journalist. Freelance journalist Mike Shiley offers the fruits of his un-embedded travels through Iraq in this superbly candid portrait of the U.S. occupation. More - The 4 Musketeers
LIONSGATE Street: June 5 Prebook: May 9 > Odd French revamp of the classic tale with a supernatural subplot. This latest adaptation of Alexandre Dumas’ classic follows along familiar lines, chronicling the banding together of the “one for all, all for one” quartet and its battle against the corrupt Cardinal Richelieu (Tchéky Karyo of A Very Long Engagement). More - Regular Lovers
ZEITGEIST Street: May 22 Prebook: now > Drugs, politics and sex sustain the “May ’68” generation in Paris. Upon its limited repertory release, critics compared this atmospheric romance of a young poet (Louis Garrel) and a sculptor (Clotilde Hesme) to Bernardo Bertolucci’s The Dreamers, as both had the same star (Louis Garrel) and both depict the famous May 1968 riots... More - The Mistress of Spices
WEINSTEIN/GENIUS Street: May 22 Prebook: now > An impossible love blossoms between two good-looking leads in this magical/realist romance. An old-fashioned fairy tale in modern-day dress, this chick flick involves a spice merchant (Aishwarya Rai) with magical healing powers who will lose those powers if she dares to fall in love. More - The Italian
SONY Street: May 22 Prebook: now > Roguish kiddie crooks run rampant in a film that could be subtitled “Oliver Twistovic.” Charles Dickens comes to mind while watching this lively tale of a Russian orphan (Kolya Spiridonov), who, on the verge of being adopted by an Italian couple, decides to bust out of his orphanage and find his mother. More - Free Zone
NEW YORKER Street: May 29 Prebook: April 25 > Natalie Portman returns to her homeland to star in this intelligent but uneven Mid-East road movie. The most mainstream film from Amos Gitai, Israel’s leading arthouse filmmaker, is a dreamy, symbolic affair that finds an American girl (Natalie Portman) riding with an Israeli cabbie (Hana Laszlo) to collect money from a Palestinian woman (... More - Who the #$&% is Jackson Pollock?
NEW LINE/WARNER Street: May 1 Prebook: now > Entertaining only-in-America tale of a curiously complicated art appraisal. A feature-length human interest story, this brisk doc tells the tale of Teri Horton, a 73-year-old ex-trucker, who bought a large abstract painting for $5 at a thrift store in California—and then discovered she might have found a Jackson Pollock original, possibly v... More - Fay Grim
MAGNOLIA Street: May 22 Prebook: April 24 > Absorbing espionage spoof from quirky indie filmmaker Hal Hartley. Hal Hartley’s delightfully deadpan humor returns in full effect in this sequel to his 1997 film Henry Fool. In Fay Grim, Parker Posey takes center stage as Henry’s widow—it remains to be seen if he is really dead—who is dragged by a CIA agent (Jeff Goldblum)... More
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