Cinematical Indie »

Louie Psihoyos's animal rights documentary The Cove (a film we've been championing since Sundance '09 - read our review here) has been opening eyes stateside and in a handful of overseas markets since opening last summer, but the real question was whether or not the people of Japan would hear about the mass dolphin harvesting that had been going on for years under their noses in the small fishing village of Taiji. According to a press release, Japanese audiences will get their chance to watch The Cove come April 2010, when distributor Medallion Media releases the Oscar nominated film.

In the press release (via The Hot Blog), Medallion Media director Norio Okahara stressed that the company was remaining neutral in the highly political dolphin harvesting debate, but that it was an important issue that deserved attention, so as to let the Japanese public decide for themselves. "In distributing The Cove we are not taking sides. Rather, we are presenting the film for the Japanese to decide for themselves about the issues it raises. There is a debate to be had here and this important film – and the Academy Award® nomination only serves to reinforce its importance - offers the opportunity for such a debate."

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!

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!

Jennifer Hudson set the bar very high for American Idol contestants. Hudson may not have won the competition, but she earned a singing career and then won an Academy Award for Dreamgirls, her big screen acting debut. Carrie Underwood won American Idol in 2005 and promptly blazed a trail to country music stardom. Now she wants to make movies too.

Instead of appearing in a splashy, big-budget musical, however, Underwood will take on a supporting role in the indie drama Soul Surfer, reports Variety. Based on the true story of teen surfing champion Bethany Hamilton, who had one of her arms bitten off by a shark, Soul Surfer stars Anna Sophia Robb (Race to Witch Mountain) as Hamilton, with Dennis Quaid and Helen Hunt as her surfing parents. Filming has begun in Hawaii under the direction of Sean McNamara (3 Ninjas: High Noon at Mega Mountain, Bratz).

Hamilton's religious faith is clearly very important to her -- she even has a "Daily Devotional" on the front page of her web site -- so Underwood's supporting role as a church youth leader is likely to be an important one. Underwood's a gifted musical performer, and while that doesn't ensure commensurate acting talent, this sounds like a good role for her to get her feet wet. Maybe she'll sing a song or two. And, hey, it's gotta be better than From Justin to Kelly, right?

What constitutes a remake of a documentary? Would you consider Milk to be based on The Times of Harvey Milk? Rob Epstein, who directed the latter, was thanked in the credits of the former and his film was surely an inspiration. His footage was even lifted or recreated for parts of Gus Van Sant's dramatized version. But Milk was ultimately deemed an original work, at least as far as the Academy Awards are concerned.

If you were to argue the case that the biopic is based on the documentary, where then would you draw the line? Is Monster based on Nick Broomfield's first Aileen Wuornos film (he too is thanked)? Is part of Munich based on One Day in September? And speaking of films by Kevin Macdonald, is The Last King of Scotland at all a remake of Barbet Schroeder's General Idi Amin Dada? It does feature footage from the doc, after all.

There's no denying Cate Blanchett's segment of I'm Not There is lifted from D.A. Pennebaker's Don't Look Back, but it's easier to say the latter was merely used as reference. Frederick Wiseman meanwhile insinuates Stanley Kubrick stole much of the first half of Full Metal Jacket from his own boot camp film Basic Training, which was indeed used by Kubrick as uncredited research material. The later fiction film is considered solely based on an autobiographical novel by Gustav Hasford.

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.

The Rolling Stones have collectively been the focus of some great music documentaries (Gimme Shelter; Shine a Light; Sympathy for the Devil). Now it's time for the band's guitarist, Keith Richards, to go solo with his own doc. And none other than Johnny Depp will direct it, according to The Playlist. They got the info from a Serbian website featuring an interview with the actor, who was apparently in Drvengrad last month for the unveiling of a statue in his image, the ceremony for which opened this year's Kustendorf Film Festival.

It's been 13 years since Depp last went behind the camera for the Native American drama The Brave, but in a translated statement Depp said that he's wiser now and ready to direct again. He noted that while he was in Serbia, his editor was going through "kilometers" of footage of Richards. That was a few weeks ago, so the actor has likely now joined in on the process, which will surely be very different from the fiction filmmaking involved with his directorial debut. He also said that he's "very touched that Keith agreed to show up in front of my cameras." Whether that means Depp has already shot Richards or if filming is commencing soon is unclear.

The optimum way to see a documentary like Michael Winterbottom and Mat Whitecross' The Shock Doctrine is at a film festival, such as Sundance, where it made its North American premiere this week. Unfortunately, I saw it in my living room, which is probably how most people in the U.S. will see it thanks to the Video-On-Demand cable channel Sundance Selects, which began airing the film immediately following its Park City debut.

Not to say the festival experience makes it a better film, but at least attendees of the first Sundance screening had the benefit of a post-film discussion featuring the film's directors and Naomi Klein, the author of the book upon which it's based. It's safe to assume she explained her arguments regarding "disaster capitalism" and the faults of Laissez-faire economics better than the film does. And Winterbottom and Whitecross are possibly the only ones who can defend what they had intended with their ultimately disjointed translation of Klein's thesis.

I had only the internet to use as a reference and clarifier in the end. What I learned afterward about the film and Klein's involvement in its production is that she basically walked away due to its increasing departure from what she felt an adaption of her 2007 book The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism should look like. From what I understand, Klein's work is more investigative journalism, while Winterbottom and Whitecross have concentrated on a history lesson based upon her expose of Milton Friedman's methods of economic shock therapy.