Seriously, Guys...Rashomon?!?!
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CinePhillyist
What's new and/or interesting in Philly theaters this weekend.
The Beauty Academy of Kabul - A documentary about a group of American women (sponsored by US hair care and cosmetic companies) starting a Western-style school of cosmetology in Afghanistan after the collapse of the Taliban. Not surprisingly the women often find themselves at odds with their students' concepts of modesty and gender. Wow. This has got to be an entertaining and surreal film, though we bet there are some real cringe-inducing scenes in it, too. But if you're not up for a documentary, have no fear; we bet there will be a fictionalized film version of this story starring Reese Witherspoon coming out any day now.
Trailer
Showing at: Ritz at the Bourse
The Syrian Bride - Israeli and Palestinian filmmakers collaborated to make this film about a family gathering together in their home town (as Israeli community) to send off one of its members (young Mona) to her betrothed, who's a successful actor in Syria. Because of the poor relations between Israel and Syria, they may never see her again. The family is of course stuffed full of the typical dysfunction and relationship woes, but add to that cultural and religious disagreements and you've got yourself a hardcore family dramedy. If you feel up to something like that, we suspect this one will be pretty good.
Trailer
Showing at: Ritz at the Bourse
Down in the Valley - Cute, aimless, city-slicker teen Tobe (Evan Rachel Wood) meets older, charismatic, romantic cowboy Harlan (Edward Norton). The girl's father disapproves of them being together, but of course passionate romance ensues anyway. And that's when it turns out Harlan might be more dangerous and mysterious than he at first appeared. This one's hard to pin down; the writer/director (David Jacobson) hasn't really done anything before, so there's no knowing his level of talent. The trailer's kind of intriguing, though. It could be good!
Trailer
Showing at: Ritz Five
The Da Vinci Code - Has this Phillyist writer told you recently how much he hated the book The Da Vinci Code? Seriously. Tried to read it twice; couldn't get past the very beginning. It's just so poorly written! Really, it's just bad. So melodramatic and ridiculous and stilted and... Okay, we'll stop, as we know millions upon millions of you disagree. The point is, color us surprised when we saw the trailers for the movie and said to ourselves, "What...what is this? This feeling stirring inside? Is it...the desire to see this movie?!" We'll save you the rest of the inner monologue and skip to the end: yes, it was. Yes, the book was written by the incompetent Dan Brown, the screenplay was written by the even more incompetent Akiva Goldsman (the man wrote Lost in Space, Batman & Robin, I, Robot, and Batman Forever, for God's sake! We won't ask why he still has a job - it's probably because of a little movie called A Beautiful Mind - but why is he still alive?), and the movie itself is getting a lot of really bad reviews. But it's got some great acting talent (even though, yes, Tom Hanks' hair does look very odd), and a great director (cute little Ron Howard, bless him), and darn it, it just looks exciting and intriguing and well-filmed and...good.
Trailer
Showing at: The Riverview, The Bridge
Most Likely to Rule: Over the Hedge - See our review of this film here.
Trailer
Showing at: The Riverview, The Bridge
Most Likely to Suck: See No Evil - When this Phillyist writer and his wife saw the ad for this movie, in which it's mentioned that it involves a blood-thirsty maniac stalking a group of teens, we both had the same thought: only one blood-thirsty maniac? We're sorry, but slasher flicks are going to have to do more than that to impress us these days. Anyway, in this case the maniac is a guy with a metal plate in his head (which he got after being shot and left for dead years ago) and razor-sharp fingernails (Freddy anybody?) and is played by a guy named Kane. Kane is apparently a superstar in the WWE, and thus the film is, as the Moviefone description puts it, "wrestling-infused." Oh, joy. He's stalking the teens through stock slasher setting number 12: an abandoned hotel. Unlikely as it seems, the teens are also joined by the very cop who shot the maniac all those years ago, so we assume scores will be settled and so forth. Yawn.
Trailer
Showing at: The Riverview
Image Credit: this page. We'd tell you what it is, but we just don't know.
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