Cinematical

In this current world where Katie Holmes is wife to Tom Cruise and mother of Suri, it's easy to forget she used to have a pretty solid indie career intermingled with her days on the popular Creek -- Libbets Casey in The Ice Storm, Claire in Go, Hannah in Wonder Boys, Jessica in The Gift, Nurse Mills in The Singing Detective, April Burns in Pieces of April, and Heather Holloway in Thank You For Smoking. But there is one starring role in there that's quite applicable this week: Pieces of April. *

Her last big role of worth (she played only a supporting character in Smoking and she was bad enough to be axed from Gotham law after Batman Begins), Pieces of April finds Holmes the black sheep of a dysfunctional family. Living a life on her own in New York with her boyfriend Bobby, April decides to tackle the daunting halls of turkey roasting and have her family over for a Thanksgiving feast. Unfortunately, her oven fails and throws her into ultimate turkey turmoil as she struggles not to be seen as a failure (again) by her family. The film earned Patricia Clarkson an Oscar nomination for her role as Holmes' cancer-plagued mom, and is a pretty decent indie as a whole.

So, as you gear up for your own turkey feast:

Head over to SlashControl and watch Pieces of April for free!

*And one supporting gig that's prime for the more cynically holiday-minded -- The Ice Storm.

Like many critics I'm working on my list of the best films of the decade. I have been doing lots of shuffling around, swapping some of the films in the top 20 with films in the top ten, just to see how they look. But something occurred to me. A lot of the films had one thing in common: Scarlett Johansson. What does that mean? Does it mean that she's the greatest actor of the decade? Or is she just lucky? I'm not sure what to make of it. I have never interviewed her (I was once all set for a phone interview for Girl with a Pearl Earring that was canceled) so I can't claim to know what she's like in real life. Frankly, she's not the greatest actor in the world; in bad movies she can seem awkward, fumbling with troublesome dialogue. But there's definitely something about her, and it goes beyond her blonde-haired, full-lipped, smoky-voiced, voluptuous beauty. I might make an argument for her as "performer" of the decade.

Let's look at her first great film of the decade, Terry Zwigoff's Ghost World (2001). She plays Rebecca, the best friend of Enid (Thora Birch). They have just graduated high school, and face a long, boring summer. They have long-standing plans to get jobs and rent an apartment together. Rebecca holds to her end of the bargain, but Enid becomes sidetracked with a summer class and a friendship with a nerdy record collector (Steve Buscemi). When they are together, Rebecca and Enid have a funny, dark, cynical rapport. Rebecca is good at keeping up with her friend, but there's the tiniest hint that she's getting tired of it, that she wants to move on. Johansson was only 16 here, and two years younger than Birch, but she seems much older and perhaps wearier.

Outside of the established and expanding franchises for book series like Harry Potter and Twilight, there don't seem to be a whole lot of literary works that audiences are just dying to see adapted – except perhaps for The Road. Remarkably, Cormac McCarthy's remarkable 2006 story of a father and son making their way across a post-apocalyptic landscape has been successfully adapted for the screen by director John Hillcoat, who eschewed 2012-style spectacle in favor of a more harrowing and humanistic portrait of two people surviving in the harshest possible environment.

Cinematical recently spoke to Hillcoat at the film's Los Angeles press day, where he was wrapping up a long afternoon of roundtables and one-on-one interviews. Thankfully, he rallied for one more short conversation about The Road, and in addition to talking about the challenges of bringing McCarthy's words to life, he spoke about conceiving the scope of the film, and finding the right faces to fill its damaged landscape.

Cinematical: You obviously began with extremely rich source material when starting to adapt The Road. What was the thing you knew you had to get right and then everything else would sort of fall into place?

By: Eugene Novikov, reprinted from the Telluride Film Festival '09

Just before the kid was born, the world burned. We don't know why, and the characters don't talk about it -- perhaps they don't quite know themselves, or maybe they've decided that it no longer matters. The Boy's universe is grey, full of ash, dust, and the ruins of a civilization he never saw. This is all he knows. His mother, seeing no point in going on, killed herself shortly after his birth. She was not alone. Many of those who didn't take their own lives were soon murdered by the desperate and hungry.

Skip ahead nine or ten years. The kid and his father wander the barren roadways heading south toward the coast for no clear reason other than that it gives them a tangible goal toward which to strive. (And there's always the hope that the ocean will be something other than gray.) Every day is a knock-down, drag-out fight for survival. They run, hide, starve, and fight off attackers who want their food, or their clothes, or, at one point, their flesh.

I set the stage like this not to horrify you or to gross you out, but to give you a sense of the relentless, pervasive grimness of The Road -- and then to turn around and say that The Road may be the most profoundly optimistic and life-affirming film you will see this year. Those who have read Cormac McCarthy's novel of the same name won't be surprised by this. John Hillcoat's faithful, near-perfect adaptation beautifully captures McCarthy's synthesis of all-encompassing darkness and enduring hope.

Indie Roundup gathers a selection of indie film news from the past seven days and offers a peek ahead to what's coming.

Deal. Do not despair that the first month of the new year will be filled solely with the expansion of award contenders. Distribution rights in the US for Sweetgrass have been acquired by The Cinema Guild, according to indieWIRE, and the documentary will open at Film Forum in Manhattan on January 6, followed by a rollout across the country.

Directed by Ilisa Barbasch and Lucien Castaing-Taylor, Sweetgrass "follows the last sheepherders to trail their flocks up into Montana's Beartooth mountains for summer pasture," per its official synopsis. After debuting at the Berlin Film Festival last year, the doc played the festival circuit quite successfully, picking up positive critical notices. Check out the splendid trailer in all its quiet, chud-chewing glory after the jump.

Online / On-Demand Viewing. Debuting on demand next Sunday, Clarkworld paints a portrait of filmmaker Bob Clark. Best known for his perennial holiday favorite A Christmas Story, Clark also made the groundbreaking Porky's, which set the tone for all raunchy teen comedies to come, and the significant slasher pic Black Christmas, another flick that was a trendsetter (or at least ripped off at will). Director Deren P. Abram talked with Peter Billingsley (former child star turned filmmaker), Kim Cattrall, Jon Voight, Denise Richards, Mary Steenburgen, John Saxon, Scott Baio, and other people who weren't even in any of his movies! We have the trailer for this one after the jump, too, which makes for an interesting contrast with the one for Sweetgrass. Look for the movie on cable systems via Cinetic FilmBuff.

After the jump: box office talk; trailers for Sweetgrass and Clarkworld.

Our good friend and EIC Erik Davis had a very thoughtful idea for the holiday season: Why not scan the early flyers for the Black Friday sales, and report back to you -- the ravenous movie junkie -- to let you know where to find the best treats on the day after Thanksgiving?

The next big brick and mortar retail stores we'll be scouring for Black Friday deals is Toys "R" Us . While there isn't a great selection of DVD/Blu-ray players, those parents looking to save on kid-friendly titles should find more than enough to pick up here. Note that the doorbuster items are marked with a *

Toys "R" Us is open at 12:00am on Black Friday. Their online sale starts at 12:01am EST on Thanksgiving Day.

Our previous Black Friday Movie Deals:
Best Buy
Target
Walmart
Kmart and Sears

DVD/Blu-ray

20 Select DVD Movies $9.99
30 Select DVD Movies $4.99
Aliens In The Attic DVD $9.99
All $9.99 Sony DVDs - 60 Titles (In-Store Only) $3.99
Aristocats DVD $9.99
A Tale Of Tails DVD $4.99
Babe DVD $4.99
Barbie Thumbelina DVD $4.99
Blues Clues World Travelers DVD $4.99
Bolt Disney DVD $9.99 *
Christmas Star DVD $4.99
Coraline DVD $9.99
Curious George DVD $4.99
Diego Saves Christmas DVD $4.99
Hanna Montana The Movie Blu-Ray $14.99
Hero Rails DVD $9.99
Hotel For Dogs DVD $9.99
Jonas Brothers Disney DVD $9.99 *

More after the jump

By: William Goss, reprinted from Fantastic Fest '09

One can't ask too much of a film called Ninja Assassin -- that's a given -- but James McTeigue's proper directorial follow-up to V for Vendetta does its damnedest to take that insta-pulp title and weave around it a worn-out tale of forbidden love, family betrayal, and government conspiracy. Complete with some hard-to-see fight scenes and some harder-to-hear dialogue, all delivered with a poker-straight face and capped off with some super-splattery kills, it's like a graphic novel adaptation with comic book punctuation, a film so flagrant in its fakery that it almost forgets to have any fun.

Raizo (Korean pop star Rain, of Speed Racer and "Colbert Report" fame) was once an orphan, raised by a secretive clan to, um, assassinate as, well, a ninja would. One forbidden fling and one shamed father later, and our pariah protagonist is off to Berlin in order to save Europol* agent Mika Coretti (Naomie Harris) from the grisly fate that her criminal investigations have inevitably drawn.

As I'm sure everyone has heard by now, the newest Twilight film made CRAZY money over the weekend. The Blind Side made a pretty respectable showing as well, though still taking a distant second. Here's the top five:

1. The Twilight Saga: New Moon: $142.8 million
2. The Blind Side: $34.1 million
3. 2012: $26.4 million
4. Planet 51: $12.29 million
5. A Christmas Carol: $12.28 million

This weeks new releases offer one part action to one part comedy, plus we have a kids film going into wider release.

Ninja Assassin
What's It All About: A skilled assassin swears vengeance on the secret order that trained him after they murder his friend.
Why It Might Do Well: This is produced by the Wachowskis, the team behind the Matrix films, so I imagine the martial arts action will be something to behold.
Why It Might Not Do Well: A lack of star power may be a problem.
Number of Theaters: 2,500
Prediction: $10 million

Old Dogs
What's It All About: Robin Williams plays a middle aged man who suddenly finds out that he has six-year-old twins with a woman he hasn't seen in years, and his bachelor buddy John Travolta helps him adjust to life as a father.
Why It Might Do Well: I really love that bit in the commercial where a terrified Seth Green sings "All Out of Love" to a gorilla.
Why It Might Not Do Well: I suspect that gorilla gag may be all the film has to offer, as the film is only getting 10% over at Rottentomatoes.com.
Number of Theaters: 3,300
Prediction: $32 million

This is a tale of the girl who cried wolf vampire...

TMZ is reporting that the 17-year-old girl who claimed that a fellow moviegoer bit her neck while exiting a screening of New Moon was, as they put it, "lying through her teeth." Erin Westrate gave police her story of the so-called bite, but a witness came forward to say that they saw her leave the theater and saw no biting. After grilling the teen, she confessed: "the alleged culprit was simply kissing her on the neck at the time and she was a 'willing participant.'" What possessed her to make up this extravagant lie is beyond me. Is she an English literature fiend who wanted to play on the never-cry-wolf idea after a movie with wolves and vamps?

Detective Lieutenant Timothy LaVigne says that the teen could now face criminal charges, and if this is all true and she did lie -- I say bring her down. Women have a tough enough time as it is when they are assaulted, crying wolf doesn't help matters.

From the original post:

We keep hearing about the annoying Twilight Saga fans and their ever-loyal fandom, but there are other crazies coming out of the woodwork. An ABC affiliate in Michigan reports that while watching New Moon at the Norton Shores theater, a teen girl was harassed and bitten by an old perv while watching the vampire/werewolf blockbuster.

It seems that in the midst of a screen full of vamps and wolves, an old, short, white dude believed to be about 45 years old starting throwing "sexual comments" at a 17-year-old girl sitting in front of him. But he didn't just assault her with words. When the movie was over, he decided to give her a taste of the "real deal" and allegedly bit the girl on the neck (lucky for her, he didn't break the skin). Right now, the perv is at large, and the police are asking anyone with any information to contact the Norton Shores Police Department.