BoardingGate Tagged Articles at Cinematical

In telling the story of Joy Division's Ian Curtis, director Anton Corbjin focuses on his wife Deborah (Samantha Morton) as much as the singer (Sam Riley) himself. Control hits DVD today courtesy of The Weinstein Co.; Corbijn contributes an audio commentary and a conversation. Other extras include a "making of" feature, extended live performances, and music videos from Joy Division and the Killers. James Rocchi reviewed Control and so did Christopher Campbell.

Mr. Rocchi also saw Olivier Assayas' Boarding Gate, but he noticed one problem: "The film has no motor to drive it. " Even the more adventurous and/or devoted fans of director Assayas may wish to proceed with caution. Asia Argento and Michael Madsen star. The DVD from Magnet Releasing includes interviews with Ms. Argento and a feature entitled: "Boarding Gate: In Touch with Asia."

Michael Radford's heist film Flawless inspired Eric D. Snider to write a glowing guarded recommendation; he concluded: "Michael Caine and the rest of the mostly British cast are serious enough to pull the job off, and they make the flick eminently watchable." Look for the DVD from Magnolia.

Do you really need to know what Twisted: A Balloonamentary is about? The title alone justifies a rental, but if you insist on knowing more, I refer you to Richard von Busack's recent post on the film's theatrical success. The DVD includes an audio commentary, deleted scenes, and much more.

Among my favorite film books is Michael J. Weldon's two-volume "Psychotronic" film guide. The first was published in 1983 and the second in 1996 (Michael hopes to publish a third at some point). Unlike Leonard Maltin's annual book, Weldon doesn't update an existing guide; each new guide is an entirely new volume. If you want to read about Halloween, you need Vol. 1 and if you want to read about Halloween 4, you need Vol. 2. A "Psychotronic" movie can be fairly easy to define. It's basically any of the "lower" film genres, dealing with the more questionable elements of society: horror, sci-fi, bikers, strippers, superheroes, zombies, kung-fu, vampires, comic books, drugs, sex, action heroes, rock 'n' roll, midnight movies, monsters, witches, cults, serial killers, magic, time travel, robberies, heists, contract killers, gladiators, Spaghetti Westerns, mad scientists, murder mysteries, pimps, voyeurs, etc.

The big story of the weekend was the success enjoyed by Under the Same Moon (Fox Searchlight / The Weinstein Co.), which earned $8,910 per screen playing on 266 screens, according to estimates compiled by Leonard Klady at Movie City News. Our own Jette Kernion described it as "essentially an old-fashioned family melodrama." She pointed out that the film has an "overt agenda" in its message about U.S. undocumented workers, but concluded: "Despite its flaws, Under the Same Moon is an entertaining film that knows how to charm an audience."

Playing at one theater in New York and one in Los Angeles, Planet B-Boy (Elephant Eye Films) made $14,500 per screen, giving it the highest per-screen average. Benson Lee directed the documentary, "which weaves the stories of numerous crews from 18 nations vying in the Battle of the Year championship in Braunschweig, Germany," in the words of Ed Gonzalez in The Village Voice. "What most sticks is Planet B-Boy's aesthetic, which feels jocked from the school of Michael Moore."