the matador Tagged Articles at Cinematical

As we count down to this year's South by Southwest Film Festival, Cinematical will be previewing a bunch of the films due to premiere in Austin in early March. To remain updated on all things SXSW, make sure you check this page often, as all of our coverage will be housed there. Today, we have two more trailers to show you for two more documentaries premiering at the festival. Why so many docs, Erik? Well, SXSW is known for their docs. It's like going to a restaurant where all the food is good, but they're known for, say, their BBQ ribs. Well, SXSW is a wonderful fest that's known for their docs.

Above you'll find the trailer for The Matador; a documentary that follows David Fandila's journey throughout Spain and Latin America in a quest to become the world's top-ranked bullfighter. The Matador was shot in high-definition over the course of three years and, as the synopsis points out, "The Matador is a story of love of a son for his father, of audiences for their heroes, of a people for a passionate and violent ritual and of the bullfighter's paradoxical love for the beast that he must kill to create his art." This one looks beauiful, and a definite must-see.

After the jump, we check out a doc called Crawford, which revolves around the people of Crawford, Texas and what happened to their small, quiet town once a man named George W. Bush decided to move in.

Since World War II spawned its share of war-themed movies, both direct and indirect, it's only natural that our era does the same, especially given that the Iraq War has gone on for several years now. A lot of movies over the past four or five years have dealt with the attacks in New York, soldiers in war, prisoners of war, and endless variations on these and other themes. Even the recent Western 3:10 to Yuma, hidden underneath its character-driven gun slinging, has a little something to say about the occupation. Most movies tackle their subject head-on, such as the numerous documentaries of the past few years and films like United 93 and World Trade Center as well as war films about other eras like Letters from Iwo Jima and Days of Glory. How refreshing, then, to see a movie like Richard Shepard's The Hunting Party, which has on its mind the topic of war criminals still at large. It wants to know why the U.S. has been unable to find certain outlaws, when just about any civilian with a passport, the price of a drink and a line of B.S. can do it. But instead of grousing or hand wringing, it becomes a spry, surprising and intelligent comedy.

The movie is told through the point of view of a TV news cameraman nicknamed Duck (Terrence Howard), who once worked together with reporter Simon Hunt (Richard Gere) in any Third World war zone worth covering. Their lives together were dangerous and exciting. They dodged explosions, drank in dive bars and romanced local girls. But when the tragedy got to be too much for Simon, he melted down on the air, effectively ending the relationship. Duck has since been promoted to a highly paid New York studio job, while Simon works for increasingly desperate TV stations so far off the radar that he eventually disappears. For the five-year anniversary of the end of the war in Bosnia, Duck, a polished TV anchorman (a perfectly cast James Brolin) and a network executive's son, Benjamin (Jesse Eisenberg), arrive to cover a routine press conference. Simon is also there, and he convinces Duck to help him cover the story of the decade: finding an infamous war criminal known as The Fox (Ljubomir Kerekes) with a $5 million bounty on his head.

Best known for the film Speed, Jan de Bont has signed on to direct another action-packed thrill-ride called Stopping Power. Pic will revolve around a single father on vacation with his daughter and girlfriend. When the RV they're traveling in gets hijacked, the father finds himself wrapped up in a high-speed police chase across town, forced to act as a decoy in the getaway car.

Damn, talk about a crappy situation: One minute you're enjoying some Wheat Thins in the back of your RV, and the next you're being chased by the cops, wanted for a crime you did not commit and your family is missing. Sure, it gets you out of cleaning the RV's septic (tank? pipe? bag?) for the day but, personally, I'd clean that bad boy with a toothpick if it meant I would avoid going to prison.

Du Bont is also behind such films as Twister, The Haunting and, most recently, Lara Croft Tomb Raider: Cradle of Life. Richard Shepard (The Matador) will be doing the rewrite off an original script penned by Eric Red. No word yet on the casting front, though I'm sure you will hear the name Keanu Reeves tossed around quite a bit. However, I could see Paul Walker landing this kind of gig.

• King Kong didn't do as well as everyone thought it would? Why not?
• New movie reviews: The Matador gets a B, Hostel a B, and Wolf Creek a B-. 
• New DVDs: both The Exorcism Of Emily Rose and Serenity get a B.   
• What makes a film Hitchcockian?
• In the print edition only: how Michelle Williams went from Dawson's Creek to Brokeback Mountain (I'd say she probably got on a plane and headed west - ha!)
• Online only: an interview with Hugh Jackman about X-Men 3 and more.

• Match Point: Movie lovers are so passionate about Woody Allen - whether they love him or hate what he's become is another thing entirely, of course - that it's no surprise that the reviews of Match Point are either worshipful or profoundly disappointed. Though the vast majority of critics find themselves in the former camp, those in the latter are granted validity by the careful thought that clearly went into their responses; it's a credit to both groups that reviews that disagree completely on virtually every count seem equal valid.

• The Matador: Well, this is a weird one. Pretty much ever single review contains the phrase "anti-Bond" and makes space to praise the performance of Hope Davis, but other than that there's not much agreement. A few people - including our own Karina - absolutely hate the movie, finding its carelessness and "humor" insulting. Others, however, think it's hilarious, wonderfully-written fun. Probably, if you're positively disposed enough towards Brosnan to find the idea of him aggressively sending up the Bond persona appealing, there's a good chance that you'll like the movie. Beyond that, it's sort of a crap shoot.