Four wide releases set sail for Columbus Day bounty

By Sarah Sluis

After weeks of overstuffed, competitive lineups that left many new films stranded outside of the top ten, this week has a mere four wide releases.  All of them stand a chance to debut in the top ten.

Star-studded Body of Lies (2,710 theatres), a Russell Crowe and Leonardo DiCaprio spy thriller, opens to
high marks for its highly plausible terrorism premise that almost seems like a dramatization of actual events.  Critics, however, have taken shots at the affectations of Crowe and DiCaprio, noting that despite its physical authenticity, Crowe's girth seem strapped on, and both Crowe and DiCaprio's accents seem misplaced and create ill-fitting characterizations.

With most schools closed for the Columbus Day holiday on Monday, two PG-rated releases hope to capture the kid and teen audience, City of Ember and The Express.

City of Ember (2,022 theatres) follows two kids trying to solve a puzzle to free them from their underground city, whose generator has expired after 200 years. Atonement's Saoirse Ronan and Harry Treadaway star as the city-saving duo, and Bill Murray and Tim Robbins support in roles as the mayor and father.  The film boasts gorgeous production design, and the NY Times remarked on its "whiz-bang...neat gadgets and sound effects."  According to our critic, who also remarked on the production design, "if the first thing you compliment is the set (or the music or costumes), the movie is in trouble."   Still, this film looks like the kind I would love if I were a kid: two independent children saving the day in a world with just the right amount of creepiness and darkness.

A.O. Scott sums up The Express' (2,808 theatres) appeal rather wryly.  "Aimed at a presumably large
cross-section of the moviegoing public: people who love football and hate racism," The Express tells the affirming story of Ernie Davis, the first black football player to win the Heisman trophy.  The game sequences give the audience plenty of opportunities to boo racism and root for the champ, but those expecting a spot-on historical account should be warned: FJI critic Frank Lovece noted that the film "plays fast and loose with the historical record," inflating racist incidents and changing the location of a key game to Southern West Virginia.

For high schoolers enjoying the three-day weekend, horror picture Quarantine (2,461 theatres) releases.  Shot from a first-person point of view, Blair Witch Project and Cloverfield-style, the film claims to be footage shot by a television crew trapped in a building ravaged by zombies.

On the specialty side, Happy-Go-Lucky (4 theatres) has drawn much acclaim (and Oscar buzz) for Sally Hawkins' performance as an unflappably happy person.  Apparently, her happy demeanor is contagious, leaving a number of critics smiling well after the credits.

Indie's beloved director, Wong Kar-Wai, re-releases his film Ashes in Time Redux (5 theatres).  Slightly shorter than the original, the film has drawn the most note for its its impressionistic fight sequences, as well as  Wong's signature attention to time and use of a circular plot structure.

Guy Ritchie's RocknRolla opens in limited release (7 theatres) this week.  The fast-talking comedic crime caper (if you can decipher the British accents in time to get the jokes) promises to reprise some of the fun of Lock, Stock & two Smoking Barrels.  Film Journal found RocknRolla "a middle-class fantasy of thug life," but "so relentlessly kinetic, rudely funny and visually flamboyantly that it doesn't matter."

Expect these films to join Beverly Hills Chihuahua and Eagle Eye as the major players this holiday weekend, and I'll see you on Monday for the Weekend Roundup.  Next week is ShowEast in Orlando, Florida, so Executive Editor Kevin Lally will also be posting news from the convention.

Animated Waltz with Bashir' defies expectations

By Sarah Sluis

This is the age of "reality" television, where everything from "Man vs. Wild" to "The Hills" claims they depict the truth, only to be besieged by scandals when, for example, the public finds out a survivalist stages his "life or death" situations and goes home to a hotel every night.  In this context, seeing a documentary that makes a point to include its subjectivity is incredibly refreshing.

Waltz with Bashir, screening Oct. 1 and 2 at the New York Film Festival, exists on another plane from how mainstream culture represents reality.  An animated documentary, the film uses a combination of flash, classic, and 3D animation to explore director/writer/producer Ari Folman's quest to find out what really happened during the 1982 Israel-Lebanon war, which he had completely blocked from his memory (watch the trailer to get a sense of the graphic novel-esque visuals).  The film goes back and forth between his interviews with people who were there, often with him, and the recreation of events based on these memories.

Waltz with Bashir deviates from genre and tone expectations of a "war" film.  In moments where you
are trained to expect bravery and heroics, there is fear and disorganization.  In one scene, the commander of a tank is shot.  The soldiers seem puzzled by why he has stopped moving.  Then, their whole tank comes under fire, and they flee without weapons, all dying save one soldier hiding behind a rock, who watches the supporting tank roll away in the distance, abandoning him.

So Waltz is not a "war" film, but it's also not an "anti-war" film.  Folman most wants to recover his memory of the Massacres of Sabra and Shatila, and when that memory finally comes to light�the moment where the Israelis found themselves playing the role of the Nazi�he leaves the emotions of guilt and complicity unaccented.  Nodding to the bureaucratic stagnation that perpetrated the action, he shows the numbness and matter-of-fact attitude of a soldier carrying out orders.  Whether his reaction or atonement is enough, right, appropriate?  Beside the point.  By defying our expectations of a war or anti-war film, or that of a hero searching for redemption, Waltz with Bashir develops more emotional nuance.  The climax includes a break with animation to include archival video footage, a final jolt that places the film within the evening news and expands its scope and reach.

The film has already swept the Israeli Oscars, the Oshir awards, and will likely be in the Oscar running for Best Foreign Film�and possibly Best Animated Feature, so make a point to see this unique documentary when Sony Pictures Classics opens it in late December. It deserves the buzz.