This Weekend’s Movies

green-zone-posterexploding_girl_postersevereclearflyerweb-resizeDoes anyone find these movie posts interesting, useful, or entertaining? If you’re getting something out of it, I’ll keep doing them (and if not, I won’t). Either comment or email me. Thanks.

TRIBECA CINEMAS
••• The Craic Festival, devoted to Irish and Scottish film, started Thursday night. I meant to write about it, but when I couldn’t find contact info on the festival’s website, I moved on. In any event, the listings for Saturday and Sunday are here.

LANDMARK SUNSHINE
••• The Exploding Girl: “Zoe Kazan plays Ivy, a twenty-year-old college student home for Spring Break. She’s excited about a developing romance back at school and life is seemingly perfect. When her longtime friend Al (Mark Rendall) finds himself without a place to stay during the break, Ivy and her mother (Maryann Urbano) take him in. Over time Al and Ivy’s friendship strengthens while her college boyfriend grows more and more distant. Increasingly distressed about her conflicting feelings, Ivy struggles to keep control, not wanting to overwhelm her emotions and trigger her epilepsy. Restrained and meditative, The Exploding Girl is the exquisite portrait of a young girl coming of age and finding a deeper kind of love in New York City. Winner of the Best Actress Award (Zoe Kazan) at the 2009 Tribeca Film Festival. Written and directed by Bradley Rust Gray.” OK, I like a romantic movie, all the better if it’s a comedy, but I find it increasingly hard to give a shit whether anyone just out of college finds true love. Grow up and then we’ll talk.
••• Still playing: Broken Embraces, North Face, Inglourious Basterds, and The Imaginarium of Doctor Paramus.
••• Midnight: Lost Highway.

REGAL BATTERY PARK
••• Green Zone: Matt Damon is takin’ care of business in Iraq.
••• Our Family Wedding: Two fathers whose kids are getting married can’t get along.
••• Remember Me: “His relationship with his father strained in the wake of a family tragedy, rebellious New Yorker Tyler (Robert Pattinson) finds love with the one girl who understands him. Tyler wasn’t looking for love, but that’s exactly what he found when he met Ally (Emilie de Ravin). Enchanted by her beauty and inspired by her spirit, Tyler finds that his strange life suddenly makes sense when he’s around Ally. As their relationship grows, Tyler learns to live his life with passion, and value the little things. When buried secrets threaten to tear the young couple apart, Tyler realizes that sometimes love is worth fighting for.” What putrid writing. Anyway, see my note above.
••• She’s Out of My League: Romantic comedy about more people you don’t care about. Whither Tracy and Hepburn? Hudson and Day? (Maybe I’d like writing these posts more if the movies looked better!)
••• Still playing: Alice in Wonderland (in 2-D and 3-D—though since it plays out over time, isn’t it really in 4-D? Whoa!), Brooklyn’s FinestCop OutShutter Island, and Crazy Heart.

ANGELIKA
••• Severe Clear: “Mike Scotti was a First Lieutenant with the U.S. Marines when he and his outfit, the First Battalion, were sent to Iraq as part of the American invasion forces in 2003. Along with his weapons, Scotti brought a miniature digital video camera into battle, and he kept a record of what he and his fellow soldiers saw as they traveled through hostile territory en route to Baghdad. When Scotti returned from Iraq, he teamed up with filmmaker Kristian Fraga to fashion his rough footage into a film, and the documentary Severe Clear was the result.”
•• Still playing: A Single Man, A Prophet, Crazy Heart, The Last Station.

IFC CENTER
••• Mother: “Bong’s follow up to the international sensation The Host starts as a comedic portrait of an insanely doting mother, but takes a sharp turn when the woman’s simpleminded son is railroaded into prison for the murder of a schoolgirl. Convinced that he’s been falsely convicted, she throws herself body and soul into proving his innocence.” From South Korea.
••• Still playing: 2010 Academy Award–Nominated Animated and Live-Action Shorts, House, The Art of the Steal.
••• Midnight and one-offs: Blue Steel, Farewell, Pickpocket, Pierrot Le Fou, Regrets, Showgirls, Videocracy, In the Beginning, The Hedgehog, The Refuge, Welcome. Can you guess which ones are part of the “Rendezvous with French Cinema” series?

FILM FORUM
••• Still playing: Harlan: In the Shadow of Jew Süss; The White Ribbon; The Wizard of Oz.
••• Also: Gone With the Wind. (I typed “Wine” at first. Well, it is 5:53 p.m….)

92YTRIBECA
••• Trimpin: The Sound of Invention (Fri. and Sat., 7 p.m.): “An amusing journey through the sonic world of an eccentric creative genius. Artist/inventor/engineer/composer Trimpin shuns the hype and hyperbole of the commercial art world – yet his freewheeling sculptures and outrageous musical experiments are cherished by museums all over the planet. Filmed over two years, this cinema verité documentary feature follows the artist/inventor as he devises a perpetual motion machine, builds a 20-meter tower of automatic electric guitars and collaborates with the Kronos Quartet on an outrageous world premiere. The film will delight anyone interested in the mysteries, pitfalls and sheer joy of creative experiment.”

 

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