Tag: foreign film

New in Theaters: ‘Love Is All You Need’

On By chrisbarsantiIn Film - NewLeave a comment
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Pierce Brosnan and Trine Dyrholm consider whether ‘Love Is All You Need’

loveisallyouneed-posterThere’s nothing about the premise of Susanne Bier’s Love Is All You Need that sounds promising. A young couple plans their wedding in a sumptuous Italian villa while their newly-single parents strike up a potential romance of their own. Add some comic relief annoyances and the stage is set for wacky misunderstandings and love under the lemon trees. The result, while not spectacular, is fortunately much more satisfying than expected.

Love Is All You Need opens today in limited release. My review is at Film Racket.

Here’s the trailer:

New in Theaters: ‘In the House’

On By chrisbarsantiIn Film - NewLeave a comment
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Everyone’s watching everyone in ‘In the House’

in_the_house-posterIn Francois Ozon’s pitch-perfect comedy In the House, a cynical schoolteacher who’s also a failed writer becomes obsessed with a student’s supposedly autobiographical essays about stalking a friend’s family. It’s a sharp piece of work, knowing and cynical without being obvious, and possibly too smart for its own good.

In the House opened this week in limited release.

My full review is available at Film Racket.

Here’s the trailer:

 

 

Trailer Park: ‘Library Wars’

On By chrisbarsantiIn Books, Film - NewLeave a comment

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There’s a series of Japanese novels by Hiro Arikawa (already turned into manga and animated series and film) about a dystopian future where the Japanese military has been instructed to remove all “objectionable” printed material from libraries. In response, a group called the Library Force is formed to battle said censorship with full Wolverines-style mayhem, if necessary. The live-action film version is called, you got it, Library Wars! Much bookish awesomeness is guaranteed.

Library Wars is being released in Japan later this spring. Who knows if this will ever make it to the States … but one can hope.

Trailer is here:

New in Theaters: ‘Holy Motors’

On By chrisbarsantiIn Film - NewLeave a comment

There is some wild cinema playing in the theaters right now, from the big-star, big-money extravaganza that is Cloud Atlas (Tom Hanks! Halle Berry!) to the no-money, odd-star meta-film weirdness (Kylie Minogue?) that is Holy Motors:

Are the movies life or is a life a movie? There are few more tedious questions a film night ask. Still, Léos Carax’s new movie asks it in a way that leaves open a range of answers, its focus on the how the question might be posed and whom it might address. Holy Motors may even be proposing that the line between life and movies has dissolved to the point of being academic. And it may be saying the life has become such a production—such a staged production—that it might as well be a movie…

Holy Motors is playing now in very limited release; make sure to check it out. My full review is at PopMatters.

You can see the trailer here:

New in Theaters: ’17 Girls’

On By chrisbarsantiIn Film - New, WorldLeave a comment

My review of the new French film 17 Girls is running now at PopMatters:

Like any good story about an epidemic, 17 Girls starts with a wholly unremarkable incident. High school student Camille (Louise Grinberg, one of the troublemakers in The Class) finds herself in a family way. But instead of hiding in embarrassment or trying to ignore her swelling belly, she flaunts it. Because Camille is the queen bee, her pregnancy begins to look attractive to her buzzing followers. Within months, bellies begin swelling all over town, and the girls are making plans for what they’re going to do with their babies. Among the things they don’t include in their agenda: not smoking or drinking while pregnant, or considering any of the complications that come with being a single teen mother…

17 Girls is playing now in limited release; make sure to check it out.

The trailer is here:

DVD Tuesday: ‘Where Do We Go Now?’

On By chrisbarsantiIn DVD - FilmLeave a comment

 

Filmmakers run all kinds of risks when they try to update the classics; for all the universality of some of the great dramas, they can fail miserably when downloaded into new and sometimes incompatible formats (witness what happens when studios try to dress up Austen and Shakespeare as candy-colored high school comedies). Nadine Labaki’s zesty Where Do We Go Now? has to navigate two minefields: updating Aristophanes’s Lysistrata and setting this comedy amidst modern Lebanon’s murderous religious strife. The result isn’t a new classic, but stands nevertheless as a potent and lively satire about how the violence of men tears societies down and the lengths to which women go to staunch the bleeding…

The Oscar-nominated Where Do We Go Now? comes out today on DVD. My full review is at AMC Movie Database.