kisses Tagged Articles at Cinematical

In this week's edition of Indie Roundup, the headline says it all.

Deals. Nominated this year for an Academy Award in the Best Foreign Language Film category, Uli Edel's The Baader-Meinhof Complex has been acquired for US theatrical distribution by Vitagraph Films, according to indieWIRE. Martina Gedeck, Moritz Bleibtreu, Johanna Wokalek, and Bruno Ganz star in a film that "dramatizes the history of the real-life West German terrorist group Red Army Faction (RAF), which rose to violent action against the German political status quo in the late 1960s." Current plans are for a platform release in August, with 18 of the top 20 markets targeted. When the film opened in the UK last fall, David Hudson compiled the mixed critical reaction at GreenCine Daily. We've embedded the action-packed trailer below.

Lance Daly's Kisses, described as an Irish "romantic coming-of-age film," will see release later this year, courtesy of Oscilloscope Releasing, per indieWIRE. Kelly O'Neill and Shane Curry star as "two kids who run away from their abusive homes and set off to Dublin," seeking a better life. HollywoodChicago.com called it "surprisingly genuine and sweet ... with two of the best child performances that have come out of any country in a long time."

Box Office. Space was the place last weekend, as the IMAX re-release of Magnificent Desolation: Walking on the Moon 3-D remained atop the indie charts, according to Box Office Mojo, grossing $9,763 per screen at four theaters. Debuting indie pics posted respectable per-screen results: Jean-Pierre Melville's 1961 drama Leon Morin, Priest, starring Jean-Paul Belmondo ($9,515); "A Chorus Line" doc Every Little Step ($8,563); John Crowley's drama Is Anybody There?, starring Michael Caine as a retired magician ($7,702); and Eran Riklis' Israeli drama Lemon Tree ($7,301).

After the jump: the Independent Film Festival of Boston gets underway.

A few stray thoughts from the end of the festival, hopefully of general interest. I still have one more review in the pipeline, which should come tomorrow afternoon.

- I am even more gung-ho about Slumdog Millionaire than Kim. It sort of ruined the last day and a half of the festival, because I've been unable to think about much else. I want to see it at least a dozen more times, immediately.

- I need to say something about With a Little Help from Myself, François Dupeyron's follow-up to the arthouse hit Monsieur Ibrahim. It's a respectable, low-key drama set in a French housing project, featuring a justly-acclaimed performance by Félicité Wouassi as a woman working to keep her head above water and her family together despite a seemingly infinite number of obstacles. It gets a bit too cute at points -- there's a subplot regarding the protagonist's sex-starved neighbor that is the epitome of "neither here nor there" -- but it's mostly the sort of solid, unpretentious film I greet with open arms at festivals. There's enough buzz about Wouassi that if you live in a city, you'll surely see it at a theater near you sooner rather than later.

Stephen Rea has a never-ending resume and it seems a surplus of constantly different characters. He has two films due out this year (The Reaping and Until Death) and three more in production. It obviously shows that having a unique, offbeat look, oh ... and being extraordinarily talented in Hollywood can do wonders for your career. One of the projects that he is currently filming is Kisses.

Kisses is written and directed by Lance Daly who is also responsible for 2004's comedy The Halo Effect; which Rea also appeared in. Kisses is about two children who run away from home on Christmas; only to spend the night on the dangerous streets of inner-city Dublin. Kelly O'Neill and Shane Curry will play the runaways. This is Curry's debut film and O'Neill's second project; the two have an opportunity to learn from one of the best.

Rea and Daly have much in common, mostly that they're both from Ireland. All three of Daly's films also take place in Dublin -- 2001's Last Days in Dublin and The Halo Effect, which walked away with five nominations at IFTA. Rea is an actor that I adore who can -- and so little do -- pick only roles and scripts that please him and make him grow as an actor. IMDB quotes him as saying, "I didn't want to be seen as just a guy on a list. I'm interested in good scripts, scripts that are about something, scripts that move your acting along."

If you're like me and itching to see Rea before Kisses makes it to theatres -- possibly at the end of this year -- then see The Reaping, which opens on April 5.