JustAnotherLoveStory Tagged Articles at Cinematical

One of the best films I saw this year was (500) Days of Summer -- the indie unromantic comedy that followed Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Zooey Deschanel's 500 fun, terrible, and dysfunctional days together. It was one of those rare and perfect examples of how diverging from the well-worn cinematic path can be a true breath of fresh air. And now director Marc Webb is gearing up for his next feature, which still looks into the world of love, but this time with an entirely different tone.

The Hollywood Reporter posts that Webb is currently in negotiations to helm a remake of the Danish thriller Just Another Love Story. The original Ole Bornedal film only hit Sundance last year, but as we all know, time often means nothing in Hollywood. The film follows a crime photographer and family man who ends up in a traffic accident with a woman named Julia. When he goes to the hospital to see how she is, her now amnesiac self (and her family) assume that he is her new boyfriend. Eager for a new life, the guy decides to pretend she's right, which works until the real boyfriend finally flies in from overseas.

The description might have a mirth-filled bend to it, but this is a full-on crime drama/thriller. From Fantastic Fest 2008, Peter wrote that Bornedal's film "pushes quickly into dark dramatics and the fantasy of a mid-life crisis before circling back around to the territory inhabited by Jonathan Demme's Something Wild." Considering Summer how do you think Webb will do with Bornedal's film?

No skipping this week! Bump a couple of these up to "buy" if your budget allows.

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
F. Scott Fitzgerald's short story of a man who ages backwards becomes a staggering, three-hour demonstration of superb make-up and seamless computer effects under the direction of David Fincher. Despite the length, only one note is played -- everyone else's pity for "poor Benjamin" -- while the man himself (Brad Pitt) remains a frustrating cipher. With Cate Blanchett and Taraji P. Henson. Also on Blu-ray. Rent it.

Add to Netflix queue | Buy at Amazon

Last Chance Harvey
While in London for his daughter's wedding, New York jingle-writer Dustin Hoffman romances Emma Thompson. "A movie for grown-ups, but not in that clammy, Oscar-craving way that would make it untenable; it's a movie about people that takes place in the real world," said James Rocchi in his review for Cinematical. Directed by Joel Hopkins. Also on Blu-ray. Rent it.

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Wendy and Lucy
Michelle Williams stars as "a down-on-her-luck girl who's hoping to turn things around for herself with a summer job at a fishing cannery in Alaska," wrote Kim Voynar in her Cinematical review. When her car breaks down and her beloved dog goes missing in a small town in Oregon, she is "forced to make a series of increasingly difficult choices, and to rely upon the kindness (or not) of strangers to resolve her plight." Directed by Kelly Reichardt (the superb Old Joy), who "excels at capturing these small, very human moments in the overall stories of her characters' lives." Rent it.

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

Hey, what do you know, it's already the second weekend of 2009! Only 50 to go before 2010! Most independent-film distributors took a break the last couple weeks (as did most of mainstream Hollywood), but they're getting back into the swing of things now, and the Indie Spotlight is here, as always, to let you know what's playing beyond the multiplexes.

Your indie selections this weekend are: Cargo 200, Just Another Love Story, Silent Light, Yonkers Joe, and the After Dark Horrorfest 2009. Keep reading for the scoop on each of them.

Silent Light (pictured)
What it is: A quiet, slow, contemplative drama about a case of adultery in a small Mennonite community in northern Mexico.
What they're saying: I reviewed it for Cinematical at the Portland International Film Festival last year and described the cinematography as breathtakingly beautiful, the story simple and mesmerizing. I'm one of the 83% of critics at Rotten Tomatoes who liked it. Make no mistake, though: It's a slooow movie -- on purpose. The idea is to become absorbed in the thoughts and feelings of the characters.
Where it's playing: New York City (Film Forum).
More info: The official site is lovely to look at it, if nothing else.

Arriving at my place of lodging shortly before 3:00 a.m. very late on Saturday night (or early this Sunday morning), it felt like a short night at Fantastic Fest. That's not to say that everybody parties until dawn, but with three (sometimes four) screens pumping out a steady stream of genre flicks all day long -- some of which don't start until well past midnight -- Fantastic Fest attendees might be forgiven for losing track of "normal" hours.

That's what happened to me on Friday night, which stretched well into Saturday morning. But before that craziness ensued, there were the films, and I got to see a typically odd combination, beginning with Ole Bornedal's Just Another Love Story. One of two productions that the Danish director made last year, Just Another Love Story plays like While You Were Sleeping on acid, which is basically how Alamo Drafthouse / Fantastic Fest programmer Zack Carlson described it in his introduction. A family man is mistaken for the boyfriend of an accident victim in a coma. When she wakes up, the deception ensues.

Rather than romantic comedy hijinks, Just Another Love Story pushes quickly into dark dramatics and the fantasy of a mid-life crisis before circling back around to the territory inhabited by Jonathan Demme's Something Wild. I followed that up with The Substitute, also directed by Bornedal, which was a big box office success in Denmark. It's easy to see why. The terrific Paprika Steen lets her hair down, so to speak, as a farmer's wife who is possessed by an alien life form.

Just Another Love Story is not just another love story. It is from Denmark, it has elements of film noir, and it has an outlandish batch of twists in its final 20 minutes. There is nothing "just another" about it.

We begin with images of our hero and narrator, Jonas (Anders W. Berthelsen), lying on a sidewalk in the rain, apparently dying. He is a crime-scene photographer by trade, with a wife and two kids at home, the very picture of domestic tranquility. He is happy but somewhat unfulfilled – or at least he's allowed his middle-aged imagination to convince him that he is. In truth, his family loves him and his job is steady. Many men would be envious of his situation.

Jonas witnesses a car accident in which a desperate young woman named Julia (Rebecka Hemse) is critically injured, and something about her makes him want to check on her progress. At the hospital, through a series of events that would be downright zany if the film weren't so serious, Jonas comes to be mistaken for Julia's boyfriend Sebastian. Her worried parents and siblings have never met Sebastian, but they are comforted to know that he is being so supportive during this trying time.