a girl cut in two Tagged Articles at Cinematical

This list is harder to put together than it may seem, since one first needs to settle on a definition of "overlooked" and "indie." Nonetheless, I've endeavored to compile a set of seven small films, each of which had some manner of U.S. theatrical distribution, and each of which got less attention than it deserved -- or so I thought. None of these movies figures in the year's Oscar race, but they should be remembered for your DVD collection.

1. Boy A (John Crowley) - This is the movie Harvey Weinstein supposedly championed, though I suspect he only did it so that after it flopped he could point to it as an example of no one caring about whether his movies are any good. Whatever. Boy A is very, very close to being a great film, kept from the mantle by one too-on-the-nose plot thread that rears its head in the late going. Other than that it's a quiet, profound rumination on punishment, forgiveness, and our insistence on letting juvenile convictions haunt people for the rest of their lives. In a better world, Andrew Garfield would get an Oscar nomination for his heartbreaking performance. And the ending is a knock-out.

2. Transsiberian (Brad Anderson) - I don't think I saw a more effectively atmospheric movie this year -- no, not even Let the Right One In. The story is what it is (it's not too impressive), but the snowbound setting -- and the movie along with it -- constantly straddles the line between beauty and menace in a way that's truly gripping. I left the theater in a sad, unsettled funk, even though I get the sense that Anderson was going for breathless suspense. It's pitched as a thriller, and Anderson is a God among horror buffs after Session 9 (which I still haven't seen; it's creeping up my Netflix queue), but Transsiberian is beautiful and hypnotic above all else.

The French are at it again! After last month's unexpected breakout success of French thriller Tell No One, surely it's no surprise that French thriller A Girl Cut in Two opened on top, grossing $9,750 per screens at the two theaters in New York where it opened, according to Box Office Mojo. Claude Chabrol's latest (and perhaps last) has delighted critics, including our own Jeffrey M. Anderson ("superbly made ... highly enjoyable").

Amidst a hailstorm of reviews, interviews, and offers of threesomes, Woody Allen's Vicky Christina Barcelona debuted to $5,361 per-screen at 692 engagements, while would-be inspirational drama Henry Poole is Here failed to inspire much box office, drawing just $1,518 per screen at 527 theaters. People were evidently more interested in sin than salvation this weekend.

Two films in their second week of release continued to draw well, with literary adaptation Elegy scoring $9,000 per screen at six locations and music doc Patti Smith: Dream of Life drawing $7,000 at its sole Manhattan engagement. Meanwhile, the quiet thriller Frozen River saw an uptick in business as it expanded to 15 theaters in its third week of release, earning $4,086 per screen.

American Teen withered on the vine in its fourth week, its per-screen average shrinking to $980 as it further expanded into 105 theaters, with a cumulative total of $656,000. Brideshead Revisited slowed to $1,489 per screen during its expansion into 501 theaters, though its total has passed $4.6 million.

A few bright spots aside, the August calendar of wide releases is generally pretty grim. (Do not speak to me of Clone Wars.) Luckily, there are always a few worthwhile flicks playing at the art houses, and the Indie Spotlight is here to tell you about them. We have the lowdown on what's opening "in select cities" this weekend, and if your city wasn't selected, at least you can file a mental note and keep an eye out for the film later.

Alphabetically, this week's new indie releases are: Anita O'Day: The Life of a Jazz Singer, Bachna Ae Haseeno, A Girl Cut in Two, Henry Poole Is Here, and Jack Brooks: Monster Slayer. Note that all of those titles fit in the first half of the alphabet, and three of the five contain people's full names. Fascinating! My OCD is fascinating! Here's the scoop on each of them.

Henry Poole Is Here
What it is: A gentle drama (with comedic elements) about a forlorn man (Luke Wilson) whose house develops a water stain that some people think is a sign from Jesus.
What they're saying: It's always noteworthy when a movie takes a pro-religion, pro-faith-in-God point of view -- and even rarer that such a film debuts at Sundance -- but this one doesn't seem to have done it very well. The critics are split down the middle at Rotten Tomatoes, while Cinematical's Jeffrey M. Anderson calls it "lackadaisical" and "too uninspired to be inspirational." (I've seen it, and I say amen to that.)
Where it's playing: Pretty much everywhere -- it's opening on 500 screens. So keep the faith, indie filmmakers! It could happen to you!
Official site: OMG you guys, it has a MySpace page!

Cinematical has just received this exclusive clip from Claude Chabrol's A Girl Cut in Two, which enjoyed a recent poster premiere right here on Cinematical last week. The film, which our own Jeffrey M. Anderson called "superbly-made" and "highly enjoyable," follows a beautiful young TV weather girl who falls for two very different men. One is a much older, successful writer who refuses to leave his wife, and the other is a semi-deranged (but rich!) younger man. In the scene above, our weather girl meets up with one of her lovers for a devilish little game of seduction. Check it out.

A Girl Cut in Two opens this Friday, August 15 in New York City at Lincoln Plaza Cinemas and the IFC Center, before expanding to other cities in the weeks to come. The film will also be available On Demand.

Cinematical has just received the above exclusive poster for Claude Chabrol's A Girl Cut in Two (click on the image to enlarge). The French film, which opens on Friday in New York (and On Demand), focuses on a French TV weather girl who is caught between two men. One is a famous author she loves who refuses to leave his wife, while the other is a younger industrial heir. Looking at the poster, I think of the swinging decade of a time long past, but I doubt there's any '60s flavor in the foreign film. However, you can divulge in a feature that our Jeffrey M. Anderson called "another superbly-made, highly enjoyable Chabrol film."

Maybe you've seen them, maybe you haven't, but French thrillers are making a comeback in North America. That's good news for people uninterested in art houses solely for the sake of watching foreign films: You don't have to be a Francophile to appreciate smart, meticulously generated suspense, and that's exactly the appeal of several French movies hitting American theaters this year. A steady mixture of warm reviews and positive word-of-mouth appears to have helped Guillame Canet's breathlessly entertaining drama Tell No One land an impressive $240,858 at 18 locations. Earlier this year, veteran auteur Claude Lelouch, long known for his cinematic explorations of eroticism and lawbreaking, remained thematically consistent with a delightfully complex story of double-crossing novelists and dysfunctional families called Roman de Gare. The movie made over $25,000 on two New York screens when it opened in late April, and eventually pulled in more than $1.5 million after expanding to theaters around the country. It's not hard to argue that Tell No One and Roman de Gare put most recent American thrillers to shame. North America, once the haven of film noir, appears to be outsourcing.

As journalist Erica Abeel recently observed in an interview with Canet, "French filmmakers are currently making the best old-style Hollywood thrillers." It's not the first time for a country that has a long history of borrowing from American cinema, and often improving on it. At the beginning of the French New Wave in the early 1960s, former Cahiers du Cinema critics like Jean Luc-Godard discovered Hollywood genre films and decided to make their own loopy versions. The results were often strangely philosophical and experiment works, ranging from Godard's Breathless to François Truffaut's ambitious Shoot the Piano Player.

It's time for more film fest purchasing news, and this latest bit comes from the New York Film Festival. indieWIRE reports that IFC Entertainment has bought the rights to two French films that screened at the fest this year, which cover the realms of dark and neurotic comedy. First up is Claude Chabrol's lovely-titled A Girl Cut in Two, a thriller that has already screened in France over the summer. The other is Valeria Bruni Tedeschi's Actresses, a film that won a special jury prize at Cannes. Each are set to be released next year, both on the big screen and cable V.O.D.

A Girl Cut in Two is a black comedy/thriller about a French weather girl who has found herself in a love triangle, when she entertains the affections of two crappy choices. While she loves a famous married author who won't leave his wife, she's also courting "a semi-deranged young heir" who wants her. She marries the younger man, and unfortunately, he isn't too happy with her love for the writer. It sounds like an interesting tale, and according to Variety, it's also based on a true story; however, that bit of information is a bit spoilery, so you've been warned.

The other female French flick, Actresses, is a comedy/drama about a 40-year-old single, childless actress named Marcelline who runs into an old drama alum during a rehearsals for A Month in the Country. Her old friend left acting for a husband and children, which shakes up neurotic Marcelline's lonely life. According to Variety this time around, "humor saves the whole from overtheatricality, just about balancing Bruni Tedeschi's neurotic flakiness." So, I guess that means it's a questionable, albeit enjoyable, female dramedy. Whatever the case, you can see both in theaters or from your couch soon enough!