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A Serious Man
Coen Brothers. Academy Award-nominated. Need more? "The culmination of their lives, reminiscent both of their own suburban childhoods in the '60s, and of their cinematic successes over the last twenty-five years." Michael Stuhbarg stars as "a man utterly at a loss to explain his life's severe turn for the worse; he is a man desperate for answers." (Monika Bartyzel, Cinematical.) Buy it.

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Couples Retreat
Shameless it may be, but "you end up laughing more than expected," I wrote in my review. Vince Vaughan, Jon Favreau, Jason Bateman, Faizon Love, Malin Akerman, Kristin Davis, Kristen Bell and Kali Hawk star. The comedy is broad and silly, but harsher truths occasionally emerge. Rent it.

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The Time Traveler's Wife
Eric Bana and Rachel McAdams star in an adaptation of the novel by Audrey Niffenegger. "Adds up to a mildly successful time-passer, though one too concerned with trying to target its audience rather than with trying to figure out where it's actually coming from." (Jeffrey M. Anderson, Cinematical.) Rent it.

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The Stepfather
"The most intense Lifetime Channel Original Movie that the Lifetime Channel never made. ... [It] just isn't enough." (Peter Hall, Horror Squad.) Skip it.

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Also out: Serious Moonlight, Free Style, Emma, Dante's Inferno: An Animated Epic.

After the jump: Indies on DVD, library titles on Blu-ray, and Collector's Corner!

I know some people who are crazy for karaoke, but I can't imagine any of them going homicidal over the pastime. Not like the half-dozen or more people in the Philippines who've murdered fellow singers as part of a decade-long crime trend dubbed the "My Way Killings." A popular New York Times article reports on the killings, which are based around the controversy of a single song, Paul Anka/Frank Sinatra's "My Way," and now I'd love to be exposed more to this world of machismo-based karaoke. So moviemakers, get to work on...

My Way: Killer Karaoke

The title/subtitle combo fits best with a documentary, and really the story would best be told in the non-fiction format. I guess I wouldn't mind a minimal, realist Filipino drama, particularly one directed by Brillante Mendoza (Serbis; Kinatay). Yet for the full details, including the history of the crimes and responses from all kinds of Filipinos, from police to men who fight over karaoke to outsider perspectives, I think a doc is the best method.

In spite of all its controversy and its Emmy and Toronto Film Festival awards, the faux documentary Death of a President was not worth all the hype it received four years ago. I won't say it was terrible, because I've come around to respect some of the positive things said about its purpose, but I certainly did not enjoy watching the film, which depicted the hypothetical assassination of George W. Bush using real footage of the former U.S. president.

However, I'm willing to give director Gabriel Range another shot, especially now that I've learned his next film comes from a script by one of the writers of The Last King of Scotland, Jeremy Brock. Though Peter Morgan may have been the better screenwriter involved in that adaptation, Brock's involvement with other decent British films, such as Charlotte Gray and Driving Lessons, which he also directed, are indicative of his talent. He also scripted Kevin Macdonald's upcoming sword-and-sandals flick The Eagle of the Ninth.

Hmm, why would religious leaders be disturbed by a horror / comedy movie that features sex, large-breasted women in lingerie, plenty of bloodshed, a beheading, and zombies ripping still-beating hearts out of chests? The Menstruating Ghost of Puncak (AKA Hantu Puncak Datang Bulan) has come under fire by the Indonesian Ulema Council (MUI), which is asking the government to ban the film, according to The Jakarta Post.

The Council fears that the movie could "hurt the younger generation's morality" and are appealing to Muslims not to see it. (Indonesia reportedly has the world's largest population of Muslims.) However, the Film Censorship Board claims they have not received any such request, with one board member telling Jakarta Globe: "More than likely this latest rumor is some kind of promotional gimmick for the film." Still, the clerical Council insists on their concerns: "it's violating social norms. It's okay to have freedom of expression but without violating the norms [of decency]." The film opened in Indonesia yesterday and, as far as know, it's still playing.

Andi Soraya and members of the pop group Trio Macan star; Steady Rimba )?!) directed. The trailer, which is posted after the jump, is NSFW due to partial nudity and numerous bloody bits, including the beheading. It looks like a somewhat routine, low-rent, soft-core horror flick, the kind that could be a lot of fun if you're in the right mood and atmosphere -- and if your morals have already been damaged. You decide!

Indie Roundup is your weekly guide to what's new and upcoming in the world of independent film. Pictured clockwise, from upper left: The Freebie, Winter in Wartime, Trucker, Saint John of Las Vegas.

Deals. Our own Eric D. Snider highlighted The 10 Sundance Films You Need to Watch For, which nicely sums up the buzz and the biggest distribution deals from the festival. Millions of dollars have been committed and the theatrical release schedule will be dotted with Sundance acquisitions for months to come. And the deals continue, as reported by our friends at indieWIRE.

Phase 4 Films won a bidding war for rights to writer/director Katie Aselton's The Freebie. Aselton stars with Dax Shepherd as a married couple whose relationship "is still full of love but lacking in lust," according to that dashing critic Eric D. Snider. He called it "an honest, unadorned relationship drama that suggests a new talent on the horizon." We await word of specific release plans.

Martin Koolhaven's Winter in Wartime has been acquired by Sony Pictures Classics. The drama follows a 13-year-old boy who becomes involved with the Dutch resistance after he helps a wounded British soldier near the end of World War II. Winter in Wartime was shortlisted, but ultimately not nominated, for an Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. As with The Freebie, specific release plans have not yet been announced.

Online / On Demand Viewing. Acclaimed drama Trucker, starring Michelle Monaghan, is now available on iTunes. Cinematical's Erik Davis wrote: "Monaghan finally delivered the sort of performance I've known was trapped somewhere inside her, hidden behind a variety of big, flashy Hollywood films."

After the jump: Saint John of Las Vegas reaps material rewards.

Two professional basketball players were recently suspended for the remainder of the season by the NBA for brandishing firearms in the workplace. Gilbert Arenas and Javaris Crittenton got into serious trouble for their actions but, to their credit, at least they didn't start shooting each other on the court. Neither, by the way, do the players in the Thai action flick Fireball -- they just beat the crap out of each other.

Fireball, which was released on DVD last week, combines basketball with Thai boxing. Director Thanakorn Pongsuwan says that he wanted to try something different; setting the action on a basketball court serves two purposes. First, it enlarges the field of play for the martial arts action while still limiting it to a set stage. Second, pitting two teams of "players" against each other creates a dizzying array of battles to fill the screen. Thus, the tired premise of savage, underground duels to the death, controlled by shadowy criminal figures gambling large sums of money on the outcome, gets a fresh coat of blood paint.

Pongsuwan amps up the violence and films in such a way that it's often difficult to figure out what's going on. The quick cuts and crazy angles help cover up the extensive wire work. And the basketball is really incidental to the bashing and the kicking. Between the action scenes, though, we get to know the player / warriors on one team, and the plight of the characters adds some nice, if secondary drama to the fisticuffs.

Indie Roundup is your weekly guide to what's new and upcoming in the world of independent film. This week: a special festival edition. Pictured, clockwise from upper left: One Too Many Mornings, International Film Festival Rotterdam, El Sol, Red White & Blue.

Fest Scene. As our extensive coverage of Sundance 2010 reflects, the festival has kicked off the year in style, inspiring genuine enthusiasm for new American independent films. Sundance is not the only place to discover exciting new work, though, and relatively few of the festival's selections win distribution deals, leaving everyone else to fend for themselves.

Enter The Film Collaborative, a new "non-profit, full-service provider." As reported by indieWIRE, the outfit "aims to provide a range of what it describes as 'affordable' distribution, educational and marketing services to independent filmmakers, but it will not take film rights." The latter is an important point for filmmakers, obviously. The Film Collaborative says it's "opening up a new landscape of distribution opportunities free of extraneous middlemen and unfair contract terms." Hmm, if I'm reading this correctly, The Film Collaborative is a middle man, and most of their services are fee-based, but I guess the idea is that one middle man is better than many middlemen.

Meanwhile, Cinetic Rights Management's FilmBuff, self-described as a "digital movie label," has launched a channel on the Babelgum mobile platform, according to a prepared statement by the company. Babelgum has a downloadable app for phones (if they happen to be smart, like iPhone and Android), and FilmBuff will make available past Sundance titles such as Slacker, The Order of Myths, and The Unforeseen on their channel; 'indies to go,' as it were.

After the jump: The YouTube experiment! Strange cartoons and slacker revenge at Rotterdam!

Momentum Pictures and Yellow Bird Films have released an English-language UK trailer for Niels Arden Oplev's upcoming thriller The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, based on the best-selling novel by Swedish author Stieg Larsson. (Fun fact: Its Swedish title translates to Men Who Hate Women.) So what are you waiting for, book nerds? Get your first glimpse of the Swedish trilogy-starter, about a disgraced journalist and a cyberpunk chick who team up to investigate a decades-old murder in the dark and snowy climes of modern-day Scandinavia!

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is based on the It book du jour by the late author Stieg Larsson, in which journalist Mikael Blomkvist is enlisted to investigate a mysterious possible murder that may or may not have taken place decades ago in a small Swedish town. Blomkvist (Michael Nyqvist) joins forces with a brilliant hacker, the titular Lisbeth Salander, played by striking Swedish actress Noomi Rapace, who Cinematical's Peter Hall compares to "a Suicide Girl version of Kristen Bell."

More on The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and the UK trailer below.

We know the Sundance Film Festival can handle 3D movies, as evidenced with 2008's U2 3D and this year's most popular documentary, Cane Toads: An Unnatural History. But isn't it time for some of Park City's fiction film veterans to embrace the format and make some game changers for the indie world?

Kevin Smith could turn his breakout film into a trilogy with Clerks 3D, while I'm sure it's only a matter of time before Quentin Tarantino does something in three dimensions. Actually, a few years ago QT reportedly told Total Film he's interested in doing a 3D porn film. But he'll apparently be beaten to the punch by Gaspar Noé, who is at the fest this year with his latest, Enter the Void (read our review of it here).

Noé is notorious for making films depicting graphic sex (see the controversial Irreversible), and according to Hollywood Wiretap his next erotic effort will bring the sex into your laps. The follow-up is as yet untitled, though since he first announced the project at Cannes last year it has been labeled, based on his words, the "joyful porn movie" and the "pornographic melodrama."

While a different French bad boy is terrorizing Sundance with his latest movie (that would be Gaspar Noé and Enter the Void), I'm at home watching a slightly more romantic French movie by Christophe Honoré -- a weird and wonderful hybrid of a musical, love story, and drama, Les chansons d'amour (Love Songs).

Ismaël (Louis Garrel) and Julie (Ludivine Sagnier) have been together for eight years, and, as we learn from their chansons, their relationship is getting rather rocky; adding a third party to the mix, Alice (Clotilde Hesme) certainly complicates things even more. The story and its songs are occasionally playful and sexy, or, as the movie progresses, plaintive and sad. I love this strange little French film and its audacity to turn a story about a ménage à trois into a musical, despite some frustrating twists.

My favorite songs from the movie, "De Bonnes Raisons" and "Inventaire," are on YouTube.com (but without lyrics), so after the jump I've also put the subtitled trailer on there for you to (hopefully) enjoy. "De Bonnes Raisons" is a quirky, bittersweet song where Ismaël questions why he is really still with Julie after so long ("Is it your lovely pair of buttocks / The fear of loneliness / Chance and laziness / Or a bad habit?"). "Inventaire" is more of a typical fight between lovers -- he leaves his pubes in the shower, she found mysterious panties on the floor, and her mom calls too often. Will they last? Both are upbeat and catchy, the characters playful and sensual, despite the lyrics.