In This Issue:

October 2009

What's New on DVD

Coraline (2009)

Family. Offbeat/Spine-tingling/Witty.
Animated. 109 mins. Rated PG. Directed By Henry Selick. Starring Dakota Fanning.
Selick's animated spook tale, based on the book by Neil Gaiman, is utterly bewitching, and not just because it puts an eerie, macabre twist on the perennial new-kid-on-the-block scenario. The voicing ... Read More >
 

Frozen Land (2009)

Drama/Foreign. Brainy/Intense.
Color. 128 mins. Unrated. Directed By Aku Louhimies. Starring Jasper Paakkonen and Miko Kouki.
A forged banknote is the filthy lucre that brings bad luck to a cross section of Helsinki residents among whom it circulates in this witty, downbeat drama based on a Tolstoy tale. Louhimies ... Read More >
 

Goodbye Solo (2008)

Drama. Intense/Moving/Offbeat.
Color. 91 mins. Rated R. Directed By Ramin Bahrani. Starring Souleymane Sy Savane and Red West.
A perfectly pitched, brilliantly executed character study, Ramin Bahrani's "Solo" trades on the infectious charm of lead actor Savane, who invests his immigrant cabbie with genuine warmth and the ... Read More >
 

Howl's Moving Castle (2004)

Family. Fast-paced/Moving/Offbeat.
Animated. 119 mins. Rated PG. Directed By Hayao Miyazaki. Starring Christian Bale, Lauren Bacall and Emily Mortimer.
Like all of Miyazaki's hand-drawn animated films, "Howl" is charming, magical, good-humored, visually breathtaking, and swollen with themes about identity, humanity, and finding one's way in the ... Read More >
 

Katyn (2007)

Drama/Foreign/War/Westerns. Intense/Moving/Spine-tingling.
Color. 121 mins. Unrated. Directed By Andrzej Wajda. Starring Artur Amijewski and Maja Ostaszewska.
Part wartime drama, part historical mystery, Wajda's sprawling dramatization of the infamous Katyn massacre spans the years 1939 to 1945, spinning out a number of storylines and characters (a ... Read More >
 

Of Time and the City (2008)

Documentary. Brainy/Offbeat/Witty.
Black & White. 74 mins. Unrated. Directed By Terence Davies.
Part collage, part memoir, "Of Time and the City" takes an intimate, bird's eye view of notable goings-on in the Liverpool, famous as the home of the Beatles. Davies frames each interlude with droll ... Read More >
 

Sin Nombre (2009)

Drama/Foreign. Intense/Spine-tingling.
Color. 96 mins. Rated R. Directed By Cary Joy Fukunaga. Starring Edgar Flores and Paulina Gaitan.
Inspired by his own travel experience in Central America, Fukunaga's daring debut thriller tracks the fate of two Latin American teens who're each attempting to escape a forbidding circumstance. For ... Read More >
 

Uncounted: The New Math of American Elections (2007)

Documentary. Brainy.
Color. 81 mins. Unrated. Directed By David Earnhardt.
This strenuously argued, eye-opening political doc contends that voting-machine companies, politicos, and others are pulling the wool over our eyes when it comes to maintaining the integrity of our ... Read More >
 

Waltz with Bashir (2008)

Documentary/War/Westerns. Brainy/Intense/Offbeat.
Animated. 90 mins. Rated R. Directed By Ari Folman.
Folman's expertly hand-animated, Oscar-nominated documentary is a memoir of sorts, mixing evocative personal reverie and candid recorded interviews to revisit an infamous event known as the ... Read More >
 

Theme of the Month: Oktoberfest Films

The Germans celebrate the onset of fall with the sixteen day "Oktoberfest" that runs from mid-September to the beginning of October. This Bavarian festival is a non-stop party awash in beer, music and food. If a visit to Germany isn't in your plans, here are ten outstanding titles that will shed some light on the German experience through time. So have your own Oktoberfest and enjoy the best of German film with your favorite bier, wurst, and sauerkraut! Yah!

Ali: Fear Eats the Soul (1974)

Romance/Foreign Language. Moving.
Color. 93 mins. Unrated. Directed By Rainer Werner Fassbinder. Starring El Hedi Ben Salem and Brigitte Mira.
A scathing satire on romance, racism, and German-Arab relations, Fassbinder's "Ali" is a brilliant reminder that love can soothe only when it is sanctioned by a social community. Inspired by Douglas ... Read More >
 

Downfall (2004)

War/Westerns. Blood-curdling/Intense.
Color. 155 mins. Rated R. Directed By Oliver Hirschbiegel. Starring Bruno Ganz and Alexandra Maria Lara.
The film's intense yet intimate portrayal of Hitler's demise has the crazy, nightmarish feel of a Bosch painting, with a pervasive sense of unreality. Ganz renders Hitler so expertly that the effect ... Read More >
 

Metropolis (1927)

Silents. Offbeat/Brainy.
Black & White. 124 mins. Unrated. Directed By Fritz Lang. Starring Alfred Abel and Brigitte Helm.
One of the most influential films ever made, Lang's "Metropolis" was inspired by the director's awestruck glimpse of the 1920s Manhattan skyline. Visually astonishing and darkly ... Read More >
 

The Blue Angel (1931)

Foreign Language/Drama. Moving.
Black & White. 106 mins. Unrated. Directed By Josef Von Sternberg. Starring Emil Jannings and Marlene Dietrich.
Von Sternberg's breakthrough vehicle for Marlene Dietrich was a smoldering drama in the Weimar era, and still packs some heat now (especially in the superior German version). While veteran Emil ... Read More >
 

The Bridge (1961)

Foreign Language/War/Westerns. Intense.
Black & White. 100 mins. Unrated. Directed By Bernhard Wicki. Starring Fritz Wepper and Folker Bohnet.
One of the earliest postwar masterpieces from Germany, Wicki's "The Bridge" is a stridently antiwar film that depicts the tragic loss of innocence under the futile and exploitative protocols of ... Read More >
 

The Counterfeiters (2007)

Foreign/War/Westerns. Intense/Spine-tingling.
Color. 99 mins. Rated R. Directed By Stefan Ruzowitsky. Starring Karl Markovics and Devid Streisow.
Based on a book by the real-life Adolf Burger, Ruzowitsky's tense, tightly coiled drama features an exemplary cast, including Markovics, Diehl, and Devid Streisow as the commandant-turned-SS leader ... Read More >
 

The Lives of Others (2006)

Drama/Foreign/Mystery/Suspense. Fast-paced/Moving/Spine-tingling.
Color. 138 mins. Rated R. Directed By Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck. Starring Sebastian Koch, Ulrich Muhe and Martina Gedeck.
... Read More >
 

The Murderers Are Among Us (1948)

Foreign Language/Drama. Intense.
Black & White. 81 mins. Unrated. Directed By Wolfgang Staudte. Starring Ernst Wilhelm Borchert and Hildegard Knef.
Made in crumbling, bomb-scarred East Berlin in 1946, "Murderers" is not only Germany's first postwar production, but a haunting film of disillusionment and atonement. The film's stark power comes ... Read More >
 

The Second Track (1962)

Foreign/Mystery/Suspense. Brainy/Spine-tingling.
Black & White. 80 mins. Unrated. Directed By Joachim Kunert. Starring Albert Hetterle, Horst Jonischkan and Annekathrin Buerger.
A taut Cold War thriller in the vein of classic Hitchcock or Fritz Lang, Kunert's "Second Track" is legendary in postwar German cinema for dealing squarely with everyday citizens' complicity in the ... Read More >
 

Wings of Desire (1987)

Drama/Foreign/Romance. Brainy/Moving/Offbeat.
Color. 128 mins. Rated PG-13. Directed By Wim Wenders. Starring Bruno Ganz, Peter Falk and Solveig Dommartin.
Gorgeous, graceful, intelligent, and sublimely romantic, Wenders's modern-day fairy tale might sound old hat — a sensitive angel longs to live and love as a mortal — but this one-of-a-kind film is ... Read More >
 

Spotlight

• Last month, The Daily Reviewer, a website covering movie commentary voted Best Movies by Farr among the top 100 movie blogs. The 100 Best Movie Blogs

• On September 28th, John was interviewed by Ron Reagan of Air America about his controversial Huffington Post piece, "Leniency for Polanski"

• On October 20th, John will be screening Burt Lancaster's "The Train" for a private club in New York City.

• On October 29th, John is screening a priceless, underexposed comedic gem from Britain "Whisky Galore," released in this country as "Tight Little Island."