CinePhillyist

What's new and/or interesting in theaters this weekend.

Most Likely to Rule: Gone Baby Gone - Ben Affleck's directorial debut is based on a novel by the guy who wrote Mystic River, and stars Ben's brother Casey as a private detective investigating a young girl's disappearance. As one might expect, nothing is what it appears to be and he must risk everything to find the girl. The film also stars Michelle Monaghan, Morgan Freeman, and Ed Harris. Gone Baby Gone seems to us to have an oddly and inappropriately comical title, but it also has a story that sounds relatively interesting, a cast that's packed with talent, and reviews that are almost universally fantastic, so we have no choice but to wholeheartedly recommend it.
Trailer
Showing at: Ritz at the Bourse

Kurt Cobain: About a Son - A generally well-received documentary about the famous lead singer of Nirvana which oddly enough contains pretty much none of the guy's music. It does, however, contain lots and lots of audio recordings of him talking about himself. Sounds rather moving and eerie, although we could see how it might also veer into the pretentious and melodramatic.
Showing at: Ritz at the Bourse

Milarepa - A film adaptation of an ancient Buddhist legend about the titular monk's early life. It's set in the 11th century and has the sound of a classic fairy tale: Milarepa loses his father and ends up trapped in domestic servitude - along with his mother and sister - to his evil aunt and uncle. Milarepa's mother eventually attempts to force him into an apprenticeship in the dark arts, in the hope that she can have revenge, and reclaim her property and title, via black magic. But things don't turn out exactly as she plans. Sounds intriguing enough, but the reviews are in general not good.
Showing at: Ritz at the Bourse

Lars and the Real Girl - We'll have a review of this film, which features Ryan Gosling as a man who falls in love with a life-size doll, later on this morning.
Trailer
Showing at: Ritz Five

The Ten Commandments - Yep, it's that story, this time done as an animated film and featuring the voice talents of Ben Kingsley as the narrator, Christian Slater as Moses, Alfred Molina as Ramses, and Elliott Gould as God. Wait, Christian Slater as Moses and Elliott Gould as God?! We understand wanting to have celebrities doing the voices in your cartoon, but... don't want to try to find ones that fit the parts? Besides the odd casting, reviews of this one are not very good, so maybe you should stick with the corny old one with Edward G. Robinson. Wow, the casting was pretty bad in that one, too, wasn't it?
Trailer
Showing at: Roxy Theatre, UA Riverview

30 Days of Night - The mixed reviews are not very encouraging, but we're still pretty excited about this film, which is about vampires attacking an Alaskan town during the time of year when night lasts a month. It's a brilliant premise (based on a graphic novel), and Josh Hartnett, Melissa George, and Ben Foster all star. And did we mention it has vampires? Woo hoo!
Trailer
Showing at: UA Riverview, the Bridge

Most Likely to Suck: The Comebacks - This one is simple enough: it's a comedy spoof of sports movies. There you go. There aren't enough reviews for Rotten Tomatoes to come up with a freshness rating - but that, of course, suggests a (very low) freshness rating in and of itself. And the unfunny ads pretty much confirm said theoretical rating. Unless your desperate for stupid comedy, stay away.
Trailer
Showing at: UA Riverview

Rendition - A powerful, probing, thought-provoking film certainly needed to be made about the US government's questionable policy of sending prisoners who they want to torture to other countries where it's considered okay to torture people. But judging by the rather poor reviews we've been reading - including the sneak peek we took at Phillyist's own review, which will be coming up later on this morning - this is not that film.
Trailer
Showing at: UA Riverview, the Bridge

Things We Lost in the Fire - The story and cast of this one remind us quite a bit of Monster's Ball. Halle Berry plays a mother who's crushed by the sudden loss of her husband, and Benicio Del Toro plays a former lawyer on a downward spiral. Together they try to repair their lives. The film also stars David Duchovny. Can't say this one sounds very exciting to us, and the reviews aren't really too impressive, either.
Trailer
Showing at: UA Riverview

Big Bang Film Festival - This festival, running now through the 21st and featuring screenings of a large number of films at various theaters around town, is described as "a celebration of some of the most exciting and inventive films in Action, Adventure, Suspense and Asian Action Cinema... some classics, some classics in the making." Sounds pretty awesome to us! Check out the full, detailed list of films right here.
Showing at: Various venues; see schedule here

Image Credit: BigBangFilmFestival.com