flame and citron Tagged Articles at Cinematical

Here's a quick look at what's opening in limited release this weekend. If they're not playing where you live, keep an eye out as they make the rounds. And if all else fails, there's always DVD.

Adam (pictured) is an unusual romantic comedy starring Hugh Dancy as a man with Asperger syndrome, a mild form of autism, who develops a relationship with his new neighbor (Rose Byrne). It has a 70% approval rating at Rotten Tomatoes, including my own Cinematical review from Sundance, where I wrote: "This isn't some cheesy TV movie about a wise "special needs" person who teaches life lessons to those around him.... It's a simple, light comedy with dramatic underpinnings, and a pleasant way to spend an evening." Now playing in New York and L.A.

The Cove, another Sundance alumnus, is already one of the year's most acclaimed documentaries, with a 94% positive rating at Rotten Tomatoes. It's about a cove in Japan where thousands of dolphins are slaughtered every year for shady reasons, and it plays out like a thriller. Cinematical's Scott Weinberg called it "brutally honest and effortlessly fascinating" and "easily one of the most powerful, heartfelt, and ... important 'nature' documentaries I've ever seen." Playing in New York and L.A.

This year it's Summer Appreciation at Cinematical, but summer doesn't just mean one lumbering tentpole blockbuster after another. In fact, smaller distributors and indie studio arms often use summertime to offer some great low-key alternatives -- not big Oscar contenders, but smaller-profile festival favorites. And this summer is particularly rife with other options if and when you tire of all the sequels and franchises. Here are seven small films -- most but not all of which I've seen -- that you might consider supporting in the next three or four months.

1. The Brothers Bloom (May 15) - Rian Johnson's sophomore feature -- a character-driven fairy tale masquerading as a con man flick -- debuted at Toronto last year to muted acclaim. It's no Brick, but it's actually a fantastic summer offering: sunny, whimsical and bittersweet. Summit was originally set to release the film last fall, then last winter, before finally bumping it to May. It's legitimately funny and whip-smart, which should make it an attractive option in mid-May.

Director Ole Christian Madsen began his career as an adherent to Dogme 95, the famous minimalist filmmaking movement began by fellow Danes Lars von Trier and Thomas Vinterberg. I haven't seen Madsen's previous two non-Dogme films, Nordkraft and Prague, but the remarkable, ultra-stylized Flame & Citron is about as far from the Dogme aesthetic as you can get and still have a movie. Perhaps not coincidentally, it's also one of the most exciting films I've ever seen at Telluride: bold, brave and one of a kind.

Flame & Citron tells the story of two heroes of the Danish resistance to the Nazi occupation, but it is far from your typical World War II period piece. Instead, it plays like some unholy, brilliant marriage between spy noir and comic book movie. Filled to the brim with assassination plots, double-crosses, larger-than-life villains, and big, dramatic gestures, this is not for viewers who like their movies timid and sedate. And under that grand façade, the film grapples with tough moral questions regarding war, occupation, survival, and ideology.

"Flame" and "Citron" are the code names for two Danish assassins who brazenly go after high-profile Danish turncoats and, increasingly, the occupying Germans themselves. ("Do they know what I look like?" asks Flame when he learns of a hefty bounty on his head. The response: "They know you're a redhead.") For them, the necessity of their work is an article of faith: the only moral response to occupation is to kill off the occupiers – and those who assist them – one by one. They take orders from an ornery police solicitor who claims to be in communication with the British. He hands them a name and a photograph, and off they go.