What's new and/or interesting in Philly theaters this weekend Witnesses or Svjedoci Set in a small town in Croatia during the civil war of the early '90s, this film adaptation of the novel Plaster Sheep tells the story of the investigation into the murder of a Serbian smuggler and loan shark. The story is told from multiple perspectives and only slowly does the reason for the murder become clear. Sounds interesting, and the majority of......

Ever since I saw Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind—the wildly imaginative, deeply moving, incredibly insightful sci-fi/romance/drama/comedy with Jim Carrey that came out in 2004—I've been pretty keen to see what else writer-director Michel Gondry can do. I found his next fiction feature film, The Science of Sleep, ultimately unsatisfying, but just as imaginative and affecting as ESotSM. So I was thrilled to hear about Gondry's latest project: Be Kind Rewind. This film—set over the......

What's new and/or interesting in Philly theaters this weekend. Most Likely to Rule: Be Kind Rewind Expect our review of this Michel Gondry comedy, starring Jack Black, Mos Def, and Danny Glover, later on this morning. Trailer - Freshness Showing at: Ritz at the Bourse The Band's Visit A fish-out-of-water comedy about the Ceremonial Police Band of Alexandria, Egypt arriving for a gig in Israel, only to find that their hosts and transportation have failed......

What's new and/or interesting in Philly theaters this weekend. Academy Award Nominated Animated Shorts Academy Award Nominated Live-Action Shorts Wow, this is totally cool: the Ritz at the Bourse is actually screening all the animated and live-action short films that have been nominated for Oscars this year. These films are usually quite difficult to see, so this is a really neat opportunity. Showing at: Ritz at the Bourse George Romero's Diary of the Dead It's......

What's new and/or interesting in Philly theaters this weekend. Most Likely to Rule: Nanking We offered you free tickets to this movie earlier in the week, and as we said in that post, the film is a documentary about an event known as the Rape of Nanking, when the Japanese army invaded the Chinese city of Nanking in the winter of 1937 and murdered over 200,000 people, raping tens of thousands. A small group of......

What's new and/or interesting in Philly theaters this weekend. Most Likely to Rule: Diva - The 1981 debut film from the director of the more recent Diving Bell and the Butterfly is about a famous opera singer who refuses to be recorded, and the fan who one night sneaks a tape recorder into her performance and tapes her anyway. Eventually the fan and the singer become friends, but there's also a labyrinthine plot involving two......

What's new and/or interesting in Philly theaters this weekend. Most Likely to Rule: There Will Be Blood - This film has been receiving much acclaim from critics, besides nabbing a Golden Globe nomination for Best Picture, and landing itself on a number of best of 2007 lists. Now it's finally come to Philly, and we're thinking maybe you should see it. It's a film adaptation of Upton Sinclair's novel Oil! directed by Paul Thomas Anderson......

What's new and/or interesting in Philly theaters this weekend Most Likely to Suck & Most Likely to Rule: Alien vs. Predator: Requiem - The sequel to Alien vs. Predator picks up right where the last one ended, with the Predator spaceship, secretly infested with Aliens, leaving Earth. Of course it crashes right back down on our planet almost before the opening credits are over, no doubt leading to the deaths of many attractive young people.......

What's new and/or interesting in Philly theaters this weekend. The Savages - Laura Linney and Philip Seymour Hoffman play siblings who are forced to live together again with their estranged father when his mind goes and there's no one else to take care of him. Not surprisingly, they drive each other crazy, but ultimately "start to realize what adulthood, family and, most surprisingly, each other are really about." Which sounds kind of corny. But with......

What's new and/or interesting in Philly theaters this weekend. Juno - Another of this year's big pregnancy comedies! We'll have a review coming up later today. Trailer Showing at: Ritz at the Bourse The Red Balloon - A remake of the 1956 French classic about the evil red balloon that stalks and kills people! Well, okay, it's not a mean and deadly balloon. But it does stalk people! Juliette Binoche stars as a single mother......

Although The Golden Compass is being compared to the Narnia Chronicles in some of the ads, the series that the book it's based on is a part of - Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy - is really the anti-Narnia: equal but exactly opposite to C.S. Lewis' saga of Christian allegory. Some people are saying that The Golden Compass is anti-Catholic - and they're right. The movie doesn't emphasize it as much as the book......

What's new and/or interesting in Philly theaters this weekend. How to Cook Your Life - A documentary about a combination chef-Zen Buddhist priest (Edward Espe Brown) who's trying to school viewers in the joys of organic cooking. We can't say that sounds particularly exciting to us, but we could see how it might be fun. Trailer Showing at: Ritz at the Bourse Most Likely to Suck: Revolver - If you feel like this Guy Ritchie......

(This movie has already been out for over a week, obviously. However, when I saw it last Friday I felt compelled to write about it—it's been a long time since I saw a movie that stayed with me for this long. If you haven't had a chance to see it yet, by all means do so ASAP.) It must be something in the water. Filmmakers have rediscovered the mythology of the American frontier, and that......

What's new and/or interesting in Philly theaters this holiday weekend (all of these movies open today). Most Likely to Rule: I'm Not There - An "unconventional" biopic of Bob Dylan wherein six different actors play him at various stages in his career. Said actors include Christian Bale, Cate Blanchett, Richard Gere, and Heath Ledger. Also in the cast (but not playing Bob) are David Cross, Bruce Greenwood, and Julianne Moore. We could see how this......

What's new and/or interesting in Philly theaters this weekend. Finishing the Game - We posted the preview for this one a ways back. It's a mockumentary about director Robert Clouse's attempt to finish the film Game of Death after the untimely death of its star, Bruce Lee. In Finishing the Game, Clouse starts a frantic search for an impersonator to replace Lee, and much wackiness and Hollywood satire ensue. Sounds like fun, but keep in......

What's new and/or interesting in Philly theaters this weekend. Jimmy Carter: Man From Plains - A documentary by director Jonathan Demme following Jimmy Carter on his recent book tour for his controversial book Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid. A great director and an interesting subject should make for a good film. Trailer Showing at: Ritz at the Bourse Joe Strummer: The Future Is Unwritten - Another documentary opening at the Ritz at the Bourse this weekend......

What's new and/or interesting in Philly theaters this weekend My Kid Could Paint That - A documentary about child painter Marla Olmstead, and the questions about aesthetics that her story brings to the forefront. She and her family went on a rollercoaster ride of fame and infamy. Her paintings were hailed as great works of abstract expressionism by some, and started selling for hundreds of thousands of dollars. She appeared on many national news programs.......

What's new and/or interesting in theaters this weekend. For the Bible Tells Me So - This is a documentary looking at Christianity and homosexuality, and whether the two can possibly get along. It includes interviews with people on both sides of the debate, and looks at whether the parts of the Bible that are supposedly anti-gay haven't perhaps been taken out of context and used to serve a political agenda. Sounds like a very interesting......

What's new and/or interesting in Philly theaters this weekend. Most Likely to Suck: Freshman Orientation - Oh, lovely. Another comedy where a straight guy pretends to be gay for some stupid reason. We're already really tired of this genre. This one is also crossed with another of our least favorite genres, the college sex comedy. A freshman guy discovers that a freshman girl is trying to get into a sorority, and in order to do......

What's new and/or interesting in Philly theaters this weekend. Inside Paris or Dans Paris - The story of a man who is left suicidal and depressed after his marriage breaks up. He goes back home to live with his divorced dad and his younger brother. Although they try to cheer him up, the only thing that actually makes him happier is a visit from his distant mother. Eventually, of course, he finds something to live......

What's new and/or interesting at Philly theaters this weekend. 2 Days in Paris - Julie Delpy wrote, directed, and starred in this romantic comedy about a couple - Marion and Jack (Delpy and Adam Goldberg) - who are stopping in Paris to visit Marion's parents after a "romantic" vacation to Venice that ended up driving them further apart. After meeting Marion's parents, her friends, and innumerable exes on the streets of Paris, Jack begins to......

What's new and/or interesting in Philly theaters this weekend. Labyrinth - Woah! Here's a blast from the past. It's the 1986 classic wherein a young Jennifer Connelly has to travel into a weird fantasy world and face-off against a charming, well-hung, singing, dancing, evil David Bowie - not to mention a bunch of Jim Henson puppets - in order to save her kidnapped baby brother. Of course, it's ostensibly a kid's movie, so she has......

What's new and/or interesting in Philly theaters this weekend. The Boss of It All - A comedy about working in an office by... Lars von Trier?! It seems impossible, but here it is. This film was at the Philadelphia Film Festival; you can read our reviews of the film here, here, and here. Trailer Showing at: Ritz at the Bourse Vitus - The story of a child genius who also happens to be a piano......

What's new and/or interesting in Philly theaters this weekend. Black Sheep - Thought they'd already made a "scary animal" horror movie for every animal in the animal kingdom? Well, you were wrong there, mister! Behold, evil sheep! A guy scared of sheep comes back to the family farm only to discover that his brother is doing genetic experiments on the sheep. When one of the mutant lambs is released by animal activists, suddenly thousands of......

What's new and/or interesting in local theaters this weekend. Brand Upon the Brain! - Odd Canadian (is that redundant?) indie filmmaker Guy Maddin puts out another puzzler. We don't feel capable of paraphrasing the plot summary; we recommend you click here and read it for yourself. The film appears to be black and white, silent, and very, very strange. But it's also sitting at 93% fresh on Rotten Tomatoes, and it sounds incredibly creative and......

What's new and/or interesting in Philly theaters this weekend. Most Likely to Suck: Even Money - Lot of red flags on this one: it's an ensemble drama (ick), it's a message film (ugh!), AND it's about a seemingly unrelated group of people whose lives all end up intersecting (argh!!). And, indeed, the news from the tomatoes is not good. It may star Kim Basinger, Danny DeVito, Kelsey Grammer, Ray Liotta, Forest Whitaker, and Jay Mohr,......

What's new and/or interesting in Philly theaters this weekend. Fay Grim - Even indie movies get sequels now. This is Hal Hartley's follow-up to Henry Fool, and it tells the story of the title character (played by indie darling Parker Posey), the mother of Henry's son, who ends up in the middle of espionage, conspiracies, and con-games when the CIA asks her to travel to Paris to retrieve Henry's property. Jeff Goldblum also stars. This......

I'm meeting my boyfriend's parents on Friday. It wasn't supposed to happen this soon. I mean, we've only been a couple for a month. But he's graduating from law school, and his family knows I exist. So there's the expectation that I'll be there, in the role of doting new girlfriend. (I don't really dote, but that's beside the point.) Since receiving, and then accepting, my invitation to post-graduation dinner, I've been collecting unsolicited advice......

Opening in theaters today, Pride tells the story of how, in 1973, Jim Ellis (played by Terrence Howard) came to found Philadelphia’s first African-American swim team through the Philadelphia Department of Recreation in Nicetown. As a film that tells the story of children and adults struggling to reach their dreams, Pride certainly falls into the category of sports movies with a message, a genre that has become popular in the past few years, and that......

What's new and/or interesting in Philly theaters this weekend. Starter for 10 - A romantic comedy set in '80s Britain, where a working class kid, along the way to achieving his dream of appearing on University Challenge (a TV quiz show), falls in love with his teammate and decides "to win her heart through his advanced general knowledge skills." Charles Dance and James McAvoy star. Can't say we're too interested in this one, but it......