If I know our Eugene Novikov at all, his face is like mine in that it registers somewhere between the two pictured at the right when it comes to the news that The Brothers Bloom, writer-director Rian Johnson's follow-up to his nifty noir Brick, has been bumped back from October 24th (an admittedly crowded weekend) to a limited bow on December 19th, followed by a wide release on January 16th of 2009.

When the fairly reliable Box Office Mojo first mentioned the change, I balked at the thought, but now Johnson has confirmed it on his own message board, saying "There were a few reasons for the move: October and November are crowded as hell, it's a tough tough market, especially for a smart unique film like ours, and we'd have a week or two at the most to sink or swim. Whereas concentrating on a couple markets for awards consideration in December, then pushing the wide in the more open January slot just seemed like a better use of resources."

Wait -- what's that? Eugene gets to see it in a week's time up at Toronto? Excuse me, but I'm suddenly feeling much more like Bang Bang...

On the heels of some high-profile NYFF announcements, the Toronto International Film Festival has unveiled its fair share of titles scheduled to premiere there next month. According to Variety, the list includes:

• The North American premieres of Charlie Kaufman's directorial debut, Synecdoche, New York (pictured), which has been picked up for distribution by Sony Pictures Classics since we last heard of (still) possible trims, and Steven Soderbergh's epic Che, which remains without a distributor -- James Rocchi reviewed both films at Cannes.
  
• The world premieres of Rian Johnson's Brick follow-up, The Brothers Bloom, which looks to be a special sort of con movie, and Kevin Smith's Zack and Miri Make a Porno, which looks to be a special sort of, well, romantic comedy.
  
• The North American premieres of Darren Aronofsky's sports drama The Wrestler and Gavin O'Connor's oft-delayed cop drama Pride and Glory .
  
• The world premieres of Genova, Slumdog Millionaire and Me and Orson Welles, the latest from the ever-unpredictable likes of Michael Winterbottom, Danny Boyle and Richard Linklater, respectively.

Cinematical will bring you early reviews on as many of these as we can, so stay tuned. TIFF runs from September 4th through the 13th.

Holy crap! Holy crap. I don't get too many occasions to truly geek out -- go all giddy with excitement, rationality be damned -- but this is one of them. I may have previously mentioned my abiding love for Rian Johnson's Brick: my favorite film of 2005 and one of my favorites of the decade. I was already beyond psyched for The Brothers Bloom, Johnson's 2008 con man follow-up; pre-release buzz has been solid to great. I'm itching to declare the talented writer-director the Next Big Thing: someone with the cleverness of Tarantino and the chops of Fincher, but more heart. It's a little premature right now, but I'll get back to you after I watch Bloom.

Anyway, if I love something more than Brick, it's intelligent science-fiction. And lo: IGN reports that Rian Johnson's next project will be a film called Looper, a dark, violent, time travel-themed sci-fi story in the vein of Philip K. Dick. Johnson compares it to the first Terminator: relatively small-scale, character-driven sci-fi with time travel used as a plot device. That's all the details he gave on the plot, but I'm not sure how a project could be more tailored to my current obsessions and sensibilities.

The Brothers Bloom is supposed to come out on October 24th; I'm holding out hope that it will also make an appearance at the Toronto International Film Festival in September. You can see the trailer here.

One of the many comedies debuting at this year's Sundance Film Festival, Assassination of a High School President is a school-set spoof of film noir, with school paper journalist Bobby Funke (Reece Thompson) going from outcast to in-crowd when he dopes out who's been lifting SAT papers from the administration's office. Funke hits the means, motive and opportunity triple play and pins the thefts on student council president and basketball star Paul Moore (Patrick Taylor); his article earns him a coveted internship with Northwestern's journalism program and the affections of Moore's ex, Francesca (Mischa Barton). It's all looking good. Until it isn't. Funke learns new facts that make his sure-thing story look shaky; Northwestern is calling to fact-check the story, and if they find holes, his internship's over before its begun. But Funke's ready to walk the mean halls of St. Donovan's and scour the Jersey suburbs to get the story right. ...

Many critics and observers have already pigeonholed Assassination of a High School President as"Brick played for laughs." And yeah, that's a fairly simplistic assessment; then again, Assassination of a High School President's a fairly simplistic film. Written by ex-South Park production assistants Tim Calpin and Kevin Jakubowski (and between this film and Hamlet 2, it's interesting how the road to Park City, Utah seems to have had an on-ramp in South Park, Colorado this year), Assassination never quite clicks as a total experience. Yes, it's amusing when Thompson, in his self-celebrating inner monologue, says he'll be on the case " ... like pink rubber bands on your sister's braces." And director Brett Simon finds lively, well-shot moments of visual excitement in the clichés of high school life: detention is shot like the big house, a party sequence moves and grooves with giddy chaos. But Assassination has a meandering plot line that dithers when it should drive forward, and lingers at times it should leap ahead. As Funke works leads, we get scenes that expand the running time instead of advance the plot. And yes, holding this film's central pitch up to the life-and-death stakes of Brick -- one of the best films I've ever seen in seven years of attending Sundance -- is going to make the funny-and-goofy stakes of Assassination seem slighter in comparison.

For better or worse, I have had some experience in the "ultra-low budget" filmmaking world. So, it has fallen to me to create this particular list of the seven best films of that class. Before I go on, let us first define what exactly qualifies a film as "ultra-low budget." If we were to follow the Screen Actors Guild definitions for these things, then "low budget" films have a budget of less that $2.5 million, all the way down to $625,000. Really, I don't think that's exactly right for our purposes here. We're really talking about "ultra-low budget" films -- not "low budget" -- so how do we define the category? Some might consider a film "ultra-low budget" if its made in Des Monies by a teenager and some friends with a video camera and a credit card. That's certainly one way to look at it, but I feel that definition might limit us a little too much.

For our purposes, I'm going to consider films made for a million dollars or less to be "ultra-low budget." That way, we can have a much larger set of films from which to choose. By Hollywood standards, where the average "studio" movie costs over $60 million, a film made for a million dollars or less really should be considered "ultra-low budget." Heck, the catering budget of the average studio film is probably more than the total budgets of the films on this list. You know those big stars, they really love to eat. Anyway, moving on. Here is my list of the best "ultra low-budget" films -- in order of release. Enjoy.


THX 1138 (1971) -- George Lucas' first feature foray into sci-fi -- a genre that would, in a few short years, make him one of the most famous and successful filmmakers of all time. It's a rather dark and depressing tale of survival and forbidden love in a dystopian future city, with the lives of the city's inhabitants being closely regulated and medicated and with love and procreation strictly controlled and monitored by the state. The film, which is a more elaborate and elongated version of a Lucas' short film Electronic Labyrinth 1138 4EB, was shot in and around San Francisco and became notable for its use of the new, state-of-the-art BART system to help depict the city of the future.

Also notable is Lucas' use of students and military personnel -- who were learning filmmaking from Lucas at the time -- as crew and extras, and the elaborate use of sound and sound effects which would become a Lucas mainstay going forward. It's also notable that the actors, including Robert Duvall, had to shave their heads to better depict Lucas' vision of a future nearly devoid of hope. Finally, I really love the smoothly polished killer police robots -- a great contrast to Lucas' depiction of robots in subsequent films like Star Wars.

Yes, 2006 is winding down, so that means pretty much everyone who writes about movies is making lists of their best and worst movies of the year. I like to make lists too but it's often difficult to because I simply don't have enough time to see every movie that comes out. So, I'm sure I miss some really great and some really terrible movies. Consequently, I don't always feel fully qualified to make these types of lists.

Even so, I can go on record with several movies I did like this year and will do so for your reading pleasure. Even though this year was pretty dismal for Hollywood movies there were still a few that made the cut. Fortunately, those outside the mainstream of Hollywood continued to do good work this year and were able to fill in some of the holes in my list left by the major studios.

Not that every film out of the Hollywood machine was total crap -- not at all. It just seems like more often than not, Hollywood doesn't give audiences anything new or particularly innovative but instead, gives audiences the same thing wrapped in shiny new packaging. More explosions, louder music, more CGI and sequel after sequel have become the norm rather than the exception. But as this article is not really about the sad state of affairs in current Hollywood, I will stop my rant before it goes too far.

Instead, getting back to the real purpose of this article, I present my picks of the top ten movies of the year -- with one caveat. This list is made up of movies I've actually seen so I'm sure one or two great films have slipped through the cracks and don't appear here. Still, try to enjoy the list anyway and happy new year. Oh, one more thing -- the list isn't in any particular order either. Ok, that's it. Enjoy.

Between the hoards of self-conscious message movies and piles of garbage that didn't screen for the press, I saw, about two dozen films in 2006 that showed any kind of cinematic artistry. The movies that made my top ten list are movies that don't hand over any easy answers and have thus largely gone ignored this year. Moreover, these were films that used the form in a visual way, rather than simply unfolding a story on film like a big book-on-tape. The cinema isn't dead; it's just hiding...

I should note that my two favorite movies this year, Terrence Malick's The New World and Claire Denis' The Intruder officially count as 2005 movies, even though they opened in most theaters in 2006. So, with a broken heart, I leave them off the list. I also want to include a caveat that the year's most anticipated movie, David Lynch's Inland Empire, has only opened in New York and Los Angeles. No press screenings or screener DVDs have been available in any other city, so I have not been able to see it.

1. Three Times (Hou Hsiao-hsien)
One of the world's greatest filmmakers has been working for over twenty years. Yet only two of his films have received U.S. distribution. Each starred the beautiful Shu Qi (known in this country for her role in The Transporter) and each lasted about a week in theaters. Three Times, a triptych about two lovers in the 1960s, the 1920s and the present day, isn't one of Hou's very best films, but the first segment alone -- set in the Vietnam era -- is arguably his most heartbreakingly lovely achievement. It towers over everything else released this year.

As The Pin's & Tugger's attention became increasingly fixed on the cock, Ducky slowly moved in for the cookie kill.

Readers, you are officially brilliant. Not only did we get over 100 entries for this contest, but almost all of them were clever and hilarious -- and to think, we almost dismissed this pic as "too weird" and chose another. Never will we underestimate you again!

The winning caption comes from Dan (Dan, send your mailing info to Kim (dot) Voynar (at) cinematical (dot) com, and we'll get the DVD out to you ASAP), but there were so many good entries that a few other deserve recognition, as well. (And, just so we're clear, when I say "recognition," I mean "no material goods," but you do get bragging rights and the glory of everyone seeing your cleverness.) Check out some of the runners-up:

• Grace Kim: "Much of Stephen Hawkings' youth was kept secret from his colleagues."
• Shawn McGuan: "Neither one of them was willing to admit that even for a petting zoo, this one was particularly lame."
• Sam: "The rare rooster-eating duck patiently hides out of sight, silently stalking its prey, waiting for right time to strike."

You may not have noticed, but everyone and his brother had something nice to say about Rian Johnson's directorial debut, Brick, when it was released earlier this year. Starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt (AKA The Kid from Third Rock Who It Turns Out Is a Really Good Actor) as a high school gumshoe, the movie pushed all the right smart, hard-boiled, creative buttons, and pleased audiences and critics alike, even winning a Special Jury Prize at Sundance in 2005. Plus, the thing cost only $500,000. I don't think Michael Bay can even tie his shoes on that kind of a budget.

If you're someone who a)loved the movie, or b)hasn't seen it, we're here to help: Just give us the best caption for the above photo, and we'll send you a brand, spanking new copy of the just-released DVD. Who says we never did anything for you?

Put your entries in the comments; the contest closes at 5pm ET Friday.

Over the weekend, we shared the frustratingly sparse details that have hit the web about Brothers Bloom, the next project from Brick writer-director Rian Johnson. All we knew about the film at the time was that it was a globe-trotting con-man flick which, really, is next to nothing.

Thankfully, however, the folks at CHUD just sat down with Johnson, and actually managed to get some concrete information from him about the movie. First all of, despite the very period-looking clothes depicted in the sketches on the movie's website, it is fact a modern piece. Second, the current status of the film is that Johnson is rounding up funding, and also pulling the cast together. In terms of plot, here's what the writer-director had to say: "It's about these two guys who grow up in and out of foster homes as kids and they learn to survive by becoming con men. It starts out with this ten minute sequence of them pulling their first con as kids. ... But in the rest of the movie it's them as adults." For what it's worth, Johnson described that early sequence as "very Paper Moon", and the film's general style as "[owing] more to the earlier part of the [20th] century than the later." The interview as a whole is well-worth checking out; Johnson talks in great details about things like his approach to Brothers Bloom, how he researched the script and which films most influenced the project.

Under the current schedule, the movie will shoot early next year and be released at the start of 2008.

[Thanks, Devin]