Synecdoche, NY, Momma's Man, Happy-Go-Lucky, Ashes of Time Redux, are a few new/new-ish releases that I've really enjoyed and have stayed with me. Here are a few other films that are coming to the Bay Area and which I am looking forward to seeing in the coming months:
From ifc.com:
""Wendy and Lucy" is a microscopic tale of suspense about how, when you've got next to nothing, seemingly navigable setbacks like a car breaking down or a dog running away become insurmountable catastrophes. When Wendy runs into genial, hippie-ish vagrants by the railroad, one of them "Old Joy"'s Will Oldham, their stories make her decision to head to Alaska to look for work seems like a good one, like freedom. But she stranded in town when her car won't start, and while it's in the shop she has no place to sleep, and she has no phone number to give the pound should Lucy turn up, and without an address she can't get even a temporary job to sustain herself, which seems an impossibility in the economically depressed area anyway. The people around Wendy are mostly indifferent to her perilous descent into homelessness, with the exception of a security guard at the Walgreen's by which she's been staying, whose small acts of kindness and concern are heartrending."
Popmatters review:
"Part homage, part parody, and part surreal thought experiment, Mabrouk El Mechri’s movie nimbly avoids categorization, admitting and tweaking its most obvious label in its title. While it is indeed the latest low-budget action film starring Van Damme, it is also a meditation on precisely that sort of production, the branding of a star and a concept, the exploitation that drives every level of the movie industry but becomes overwhelmingly visible in this crudest of genres."
Cinematical review:
"...Jean-Claude Van Damme gives an exciting, impressive performance here, careening between action that leaves him breathless and comedy that leaves us laughing, revealing not only the timing and charisma that made him the action star we know him as but also a human side we probably had never imagined. There's nothing more vain than insisting you're without vanity, but Van Damme strips himself bare here -- the aging action icon, the man who finds living other people's dreams a nightmare, the star who is in danger of losing a part to Stephen frickin' Seagal. (Explaining why there's such heated interest in Seagal for the film instead of his client, VanDamme's agent lamely offers how "(Seagal) offered to cut of his ponytail for the part ..." .) Van Damme's in danger of not seeing his kids, even, and as the judge brings a stack of DVD boxes into court to prove Van Damme's violent career makes him unfit for custody, Van Damme has an exasperated, exhausted and frustrated reaction that's still funny even as you really feel the stakes of the scene."
From Joblo.com:
"A couple of days ago I saw THE ROAD at a screening, where the audience was told that it was near completion but there was still work to go. There were indeed some sound issues and a few images were either blurry or discolored, but otherwise I think we saw what is intended. (Maybe not though, as I read news that it's getting pushed back?) What we saw was a very unusual film, one that's quite dark and without a central plot... But this movie is about tone and mood and knowing the main characters, and on those levels it certainly works and could be an award contender at the end of the year. (If it gets released, of course.)
The premise of THE ROAD is simple: The world is a barren, ashy wasteland due to some unknown event (we're never told it explicitly, but it's pretty obvious that WWIII has gone down and most of the Earth has been destroyed by it). A father (Viggo Mortensen) and his son (Kodi Smit-McPhee) walk endlessly down a road toward the coast of Florida, hoping they'll find ANYTHING that doesn't resemble the hell they currently live in... They're not alone however, and once in a while they encounter gangs of degenerate scavengers bent on capturing and eating any living thing they find."
