Indie Picks: At The Movies This Weekend
Here we are: the weekend when things get a little bit more interesting for film buffs in Austin. We welcome Violet Crown Cinema to Downtown and are very excited for their upcoming calender.
While we're a tiny bit bummed that the theater is completely digital and is not set up to project film prints of any kind, their setup will prevent situations like we recently had at the Regal Arbor where Mike Leigh's Another Year was exhibited on opening weekend with considerable print damage.
Ultimately, having four more dedicated arthouse screens in the area is something to be thankful for. You can instantly see the difference it makes as four of the five films opening on the indie circuit are subtitled. We hope you'll support some of these great movies so that bookings can continue to be diverse and plentiful in the months to come.
Certified Copy (Violet Crown Cinema)
Iranian filmmaker Abbas Kiarostami (Taste Of Cherry, Close-Up) recruited his friend Juliette Binoche to star in this film where she plays an antiques dealer who befriends a British writer who is promoting his latest book in Tuscany. The role earned Binoche the Best Actress Award at the Cannes Film Festival last year. Certified Copy has earned comparisons to everything from Rossellini's Journey To Italy to Linklater's Before Sunrise and Before Sunset.
Since the Regal Arbor will not book any films available on VOD, we're pleased that the Violet Crown will be bringing more of these IFC Films and Sundance Selects titles to town.
Circo (Violet Crown Cinema)
We haven't had a chance to see this acclaimed documentary yet, so here's the description straight from the Violet Crown:
"Gorgeously filmed along the back roads of rural Mexico, Circo follows the Ponce family's hardscrabble circus as it struggles to stay together despite mounting debt, dwindling audiences, and a simmering family conflict. Tino, the ringmaster, is driven by his dream to lead his parents' circus to success and corrals the energy of his whole family, including his four young children, towards this singular goal. But his wife Ivonne is determined to make a change. Feeling exploited by her in-laws, she longs to return to her kids a childhood lost to laboring in the circus. Through this intricately woven story of a marriage in trouble and of a century-old family tradition that hangs in the balance, Circo opens the viewer to the luminous world of a traveling circus while examining the universal themes of family bonds, filial responsibility, and the weight of cultural inheritance. With original music by Calexico."
In A Better World (Violet Crown Cinema, Regal Arbor)
From our SXSW coverage: Suzanne Bier is no stranger to awards season. Her 2006 film After The Wedding was nominated for Best Foreign Language Film at the Academy Awards. This year, she had a pretty amazing one-two punch when In A Better World won the Golden Globe for Best Foreign Film a few weeks before it took home the same prize at the Oscars (After The Wedding had previously lost out to The Lives Of Others). It was only the third Danish film to take home the award, following Babette's Feast and Pelle The Conqueror, both late 80's winners of the Foreign Film Oscar.
This film follows Anton, a man who lives in a small Danish town and works at a camp for African refugees. That environment is contrasted with his own life, where he is dealing with a separation from his wife and the struggles in raising their own two children in a fractured family. When one of their sons is the victim of serious bullying at school, Anton's own moral compass and belief in nonviolence is challenged.
Super (Alamo South Lamar)
One of our biggest disappointments at SXSW this year, James Gunn's Super is truly anything but. While there is already a fanboy audience working hard to turn this into a cult classic, we found it to be mean spirited and morally reprehensible. Rainn Wilson and Ellen Page clearly are having fun, but this superhero revenge thriller ultimately falls flat.
13 Assassins (Alamo Ritz)
Badass Digest recently posted an interview with Alamo Drafthouse founder Tim League about why he's not worried about VOD availability. 13 Assassins is really the perfect example of everything that article spells out. Sure, you can stay at home and order this movie through your cable's on-demand menu, but you'd be missing out on seeing Takeshi Miike's samurai masterpiece on the giant screen at the Ritz with a packed, appreciative audience. No matter how comfy your couch is, that's an experience that cannot be matched at home.
If you saw it at SXSW, chances are that you're itching to see it again. If you've only experienced Miike's Audition or Ichi The Killer, you may be surprised at just how skillfully made this epic film really is. By the time the film closes with an outrageous 45-minute battle, I think you'll be glad you made the choice to see it on the big screen.
