The Brave One
Jodie Foster's pool-table (or was it pinball machine?) scene in The Accused was burned into our early middle-school brains, so will that make it harder or easier to watch her get brutalized again in this new movie? At least her character is totally different - this time she's an upscale New Yorker who gets beaten by unknown assailants in Central Park (and the movie is directed by Neil Jordan, of The Crying Game fame). A question more to the point may be, why are there all these movies now about people getting vengeance on the dark forces of the underworld which threaten their pretty lives? [Website] [Trailer]

Dragon Wars (D-War)
AN ANCIENT EVIL WILL AWAKE in this Korean film about a girl who has the power to save Los Angeles from dragons (with the help of an intrepid reporter). How often do ancient evils actually awake? Aren't now-evils actually permutations of ancient evils? We're not sure the film will answer these questions, but we can promise you awesome dragons.
[Website] [Trailer]

The 11th Hour
Another documentary about global warming and the way we have convinced ourselves it ain't happening. Will Leo DiCaprio be able to break through the giant icebergs of denial and self-indulgence Americans seem to built up around themselves when it comes to this issue? Well, he is a movie star, so he knows something about denial and self-indulgence...we have hope, of the cautious variety. [Website] [Trailer]

Descent
Don't worry - there are no blinded, devolved, cannibalistic cave-men in this movie. Rosario Dawson plays a college student who is raped (apparently brutally - the movie's rated NC-17) and then spirals downward into revenge-land. Again with the revenge! This plot synopsis reminds us of Alice Sebold's excellent first book Lucky, though, so we're willing to give it a try. [Website] [Trailer]

Mr. Woodcock
Billy Bob Thornton plays a sadistic buttmunch of a small-town gym teacher who terrorizes Seann William Scott as a child, and then tries to marry his mom (Susan Sarandon! Why?). We want Dodgeball back. Don't pull a hammy! [Website] [Trailer]

The Devil Came on Horseback
Another documentary, this one about the US failure to do much of anything in Darfur. Like a lot of movies about African troubles, this one follows a Westerner who witnesses everything unfold, so you're supposed to be able to have somebody to identify with (because Africans are hard to understand? or something?) But far be it from us to criticize any film which tries to get this issue into the spotlight. [Website]

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