Commentary Track

by MIKE MACCOLLUM

LIMITED RELEASE THEATRICAL FILMS OPENING IN INDIANA THIS WEEK – This is quite the slow week for new limited-release films in central Indiana, with no new art films starting at the Keystone Arts and little new at the Georgetown 14.  Still, there are a few new movies out there, along with more than a few holdovers and special screenings.  Read on below for more on all of that, along with a special feature at the end of this week’s column – a piece on a Significant Anniversary of the theatrical release in Indianapolis of an Important, Life-Changing Film….

The Boondock Saints II: All Saints Day – Norman Reedus, Sean Patrick Flanery, Julie Benz, Peter Fonda, Judd Nelson, and Billy Connolly  star in Troy Duffy’s sequel to his 1999 crime drama The Boondock Saints; it started on Wednesday, November 25, at the Regal Village Park 17 in Carmel, the Shiloh Crossing in Avon, the Greenwood Park 14, the ShowPlace 16 and IMAX on Indy’s southside, the Eastside 10 in Lafayette, the ShowPlace 12 in Muncie, the Honey Creek West 8 in Terre Haute, the ShowPlace East 11 in Bloomington, the Carmike 20 in Fort Wayne, and the Stadium 16 in Evansville.

(And yes, I realize that this movie opened elsewhere in Indiana a few weeks ago, and was already covered in this part of the column as a new theatrical release at that time.  However, I thought that since Boondock Saints II was moving into so many new markets in Indiana this week, it shouldn’t be treated as a mere holdover – so here it is again in the “opening in Indiana this week” section.)

Hermie & Friends: A Fruitcake Christmas – Tim Conway and Don Knotts provide two of the voices for this Christian-oriented children’s film from 2005 about anthropomorphic garden bugs whose Christmas plans are threatened when a fruitcake is stolen by a pair of mean bugs.  Hermie & Friends will be shown daily at 1:20 this week at the Georgetown 14 in Indianapolis; it will also be screened at 11 AM Friday through Sunday at the Hamilton 16 and IMAX, the Eastside 10 in Lafayette, and the Portage 16 and IMAX in Portage, and at 3:30 and 5:10 on Friday through Sunday at the Studio 10 in Shelbyville.

Raaj, the Show Man – This postponed Kannada-language from India finally makes its debut at the Georgetown 14 this week.  As of now, it is scheduled for just one show, at 2 PM on Sunday, November 29.

THEATRICAL HOLDOVERS, FILM FESTIVALS, REVIVAL SCREENINGS, AND OTHER SPECIAL SHOWINGS IN INDIANA THIS WEEK

Arya 2 – This Telegu-language romantic comedy about a software engineer has two screenings on Friday (one at 5:30 PM, and another at 9 that is sold out), and two more screenings on Saturday (at 2 and 5:30 PM) at the Georgetown 14 in Indianapolis.

Chickenfoot Live – Chickenfoot – the new supergoup consisting of Joe Satriani, Sammy Hagar, Michael Anthony and Chad Smith – is featured in this concert film, which captures a live performance of the group in Full HD and 5.1 Surround Sound.  The world premiere screening of this event takes place at 8 PM on Tuesday December 1st; the only two Indiana theaters participating (as of the last time I checked, at least) are the Showplace Cinema East in Evansville and the Carmike 20 in Fort Wayne.

Coco Before Chanel- Continues this week (except Wednesday) at the Cinema Center in Fort Wayne.

De Dana Dan – Akshay Kumar and Katrina Kaif are the stars of this Bollywood comedy, which continues at the Georgetown 14, with showings at 2 and 9 PM on Friday, and a 9 PM show on Saturday.

An Education – Continues for another week at the Keystone Arts in Indianapolis; also, starts Friday, December 4, at the Cinema Center in Fort Wayne.

Food, Inc. – This surprisingly successful documentary about America’s food supply will be shown at 6 and 8 PM on Tuesday, December 1, at Nashville’s Lotus Petal Cinema, as part of the Lotus Petal’s “Reel Matters” series of docs.

George Michael: Live from London – The Showplace 16 and IMAX in Indianapolis, the Showplace Cinemas East in Evansville, the ShowPlace 12 West in Bloomington, and the ShowPlace 12 in Schererville will show this concert event at 7:30 PM on Thursday, December 3.  The one-time-only screening features what its official site refers to as “all his amazing hits: “Father Figure,” “One More Try,” “Freedom,” “Faith,” “Everything She Wants,” “Amazing,” and “many many more.”

Glenn Beck’s The Christmas Sweater: A Return to Redemption – Live- The radio and TV talk show host follows up last year’s The Christmas Sweater by talking about the impact it had on the lives of others, as well as the actual events that led to the writing of The Christmas Sweater.  This event also features a re-mastered version of the original The Christmas Sweater story from 2008.  The Christmas Sweater: A Return to Redemption will be shown live at 8 PM on Thursday, December 3, at the ShowPlace 16 and IMAX, the Castleton Square 14 and Galaxy 14 in Indianapolis, the Hamilton 16 and IMAX in Noblesville, and fifteen other theaters across Indiana.

Good Hair – Chris Rock’s documentary holds over for another week at the Georgetown 14 in Indianapolis.

Kurbaan – This suspense drama from India will have one showing at the Georgetown 14 in Indianapolis this week, at 9 PM on Saturday, November 28.

Mall of America and 0% Down – These two short films by Josephine Meckseper will be shown simultaneously (on different walls of the same gallery) at the Indianapolis Museum of Art through February 7, 2010.

Miracle on 34th Street – Maureen O’Hara, John Payne and Natalie Wood star in the 1947 Christmas classic, which will be shown at Franklin’s historic Artcraft Theatre at 2 and 7:30 PM on both Friday, November 27th and Saturday, November 28th.

My Little Pony: Twinkle Wish Adventure – Continues at the Georgetown 14 in Indianapolis through at least November 24 with one show per day (at 1 PM); also showing at 1 and 2 PM – but on Friday through Sunday only – at the Studio 10 in Shelbyville,  and showing daily at the Showplace Cinemas East in Evansville this week at 11 AM.

My Night at Maud’s – Eric Rohmer’s film about a man who thinks he wants to marry a woman named Françoise – until he meets Maud, that is – will be shown for free at 7 PM on Tuesday, December 1, at the Jewish Community Center’s Laikin Auditorium.  The screening is part of the Indiana Film Society’s “Time Capsule 1969” film series.

Omer Fast: The Casting – This fourteen minute, four channel video installation continues at the Indianapolis Museum of Art through March 14. The piece intercuts excerpts from the artist’s conversations with a soldier about to leave for his second tour of duty in Iraq with footage of actors mimicking the dialogue.

Outside the Law – Lon Chaney Sr. plays two roles in this silent melodrama about a young couple on the run from the law after stealing some jewelry.  Priscilla Dean and Wheeler Oakman co-star, and Tod Browning (Freaks, Dracula) directed.  This 1921 silent film (with prerecorded musical score) will be shown for free at the Garfield Park Arts Center in Indianapolis on Saturday, November 28, starting at 8 PM.

Paper Heart – This semi- (or pseudo-) documentary about modern-day love and relationships starts Thursday, December 3, at the Lotus Petal Cinema in Nashville.

The Perfect Gift – Holds over for another week at the Georgetown 14 in Indianapolis.

Pirate Radio – If the online schedule for the Goodrich Hamilton 16 and IMAX in Noblesville is correct (and if I am reading it correctly), the only two showings for this film in the Indianapolis area this week will be at 9:30 PM on Sunday, November 29, and Monday, November 30, at the Hamilton 16.

The Rocky Horror Picture Show – Showing at 10 PM again this Saturday at the Georgetown 14 in Indianapolis.

A Serious Man – Continues this week at the Keystone Arts in Indianapolis; also showing through December 1 at the Cinema Center in Fort Wayne.

Strangers in Good Company – Fort Wayne’s Cinema Center will have a free screening this week of this 1990 Canadian film about a group of women whose tour bus breaks down in a rural area; they talk and get to know each other better while waiting for the bus to get repaired.  The showing will take place on Wednesday, December 2 at 7 PM.

35 Shots of Rum – The Ryder Magazine and Film series of Bloomington is behind what are likely to be the only big screen showings in Indiana of Claire Denis’ drama.  Go to The Ryder’s site for show time and movie information.

Thomas & Friends: Splish, Splash, Splosh – This children’s film will be shown at 11:15 AM on Saturday and Sunday at the Rave Metropolis 18 in Plainfield.

OPENING ELSEWHERE

Dust of Life – This coming of age drama about teenagers growing up in 1990s California started Nov 7 in Fountain Valley, CA; it also started some time last week at the Loehmann’s Twin Cinema in Falls Church, VA.  This was the first time I heard of the film, so I am including an entry for it this week.  (“Dust of Life,” by the way, is a term for abandoned children who live on the streets; the main character, Johnny, was born in Vietnam, and lost both of his parents on the way to America.)

Home – Isabelle Huppert and Olivier Gourmet play a couple who enjoy their quiet lives in the French countryside – until the construction of a highway nearby leads to conflict between the pair regarding the best way to deal with the situation, for themselves and their children.  Ursula Meier directed this film, which is Switzerland’s selection for the Best Foreign Language Film Academy Award; it starts Friday at the Cinema Village in New York City.

Me and Orson Welles – Richard Linklater directed this comedy/drama about a young actor who is cast in the Mercury Theatre’s 1937 production of Julius Caesar, directed by a pre-Citizen Kane Orson Welles.  Zac Efron plays the actor, Claire Danes plays the slightly older woman he falls for, and Christian McKay – a British stage actor – plays Welles.  Me and Orson Welles started Wednesday at three or four theaters (sources vary – either at two theaters in Los Angeles and two in New York City, or one in LA and two in NYC); it is currently (tentatively) scheduled to open at the Keystone Arts in Indianapolis on December 18.

The Princess and the Frog – As you may have heard by now, the latest Disney animated film features elements both new (Disney’s first African-American princess) and old (hand-drawn animation); it is set in New Orleans in the 1920s.  Ron Clements and John Musker (The Little Mermaid, Aladdin, The Great Mouse Detective and Hercules) co-directed; Terrence Howard, Oprah Winfrey, Jenifer Lewis and John Goodman provide voices for the film, which started Wednesday at two theaters (one in New York, one in Los Angeles), and expands into wide release on December 11.

The Private Lives of Pippa Lee – Robin Wright Penn stars as Pippa Lee, the fifty-year-old wife of a much older man (Alan Arkin).  When her husband suddenly decides that they will be moving into a retirement home, Pippa feels like her wonderful life could be in danger of falling apart.  Maria Bello, Monica Bellucci, Blake Lively, Julianne Moore, Keanu Reeves and Winona Ryder also appear in this film, which was directed by Rebecca Miller, who also adapted her own novel for the screen.  The Private Lives of Pippa Lee starts Friday, November 27, on eleven screens (four in the greater Los Angeles area, four more in New York, two in Connecticut, and one in New Jersey).

The Road – Here’s a fun fact tangentially associated with a movie that seems determined to crush any vestige of fun beneath its grey, grimy boots: Indianapolis is something like the nation’s 42nd or 43rd movie market. That’s relevant here because at one point the film was supposed to open here on Wednesday – until the 11/25 release was recently scaled back to approximately 90 screens in the nation’s top 30 movie markets. This explains why central Indiana (and the Keystone Arts in particular) did not get this movie on Wednesday.  In any event, there’s nothing on the film’s official site about when the film will go into wider release, as far as I could see.  I can tell you that Viggo Mortensen, Robert Duvall, Guy Pearce and Charlize Theron are in the cast of the film, and that it was adapted by Joe Penhall from Cormac McCarthy’s novel; John Hillcoat (The Proposition) directed.

Rockin’ Meera – The official site for this film describes it as a “zany love story set in the heart of the golden desert which unfolds in the jaws of a raging tiger, raining bullets and a comical match of wits!”  Yes, it does – it really does (on the “list of theaters” page, to be precise).  The story involves a young woman named Meera, who falls in love with Rock, the lead singer in a San Francisco hip-hop band called Nerve Block.  When Meera vanishes right before her wedding to Rock, he and his fellow musicians decide to travel to India and bring her back – only to discover that she also has a fiance in India.  Rockin’ Meera started Thursday at fifteen theaters (two in California, three in Florida, two in Georgia, two in New Jersey, and one each in Connecticut, Illinois, Massachusetts, Ohio, Michigan and Virginia).

(By the way – Variety‘s Film Release Chart claims that two Indian films – Angel John and Yogi - opened in the US on November 26, but I have yet to find any proof of this.  If and when I do, I will include them on a future edition of “opening elsewhere”.)

NEXT WEEK AND BEYOND

Here are a few updates to the Keystone Arts’ schedule, courtesy of that theater’s web page; please note that the following films and release dates are tentative:

December 11 – Red Cliff and Antichrist

December 18 – Me and Orson Welles

And here are some more upcoming movies and dates for the Keystone Arts; since these are further off in the future – and not posted online yet – these are even more tentative than those given above:

December 25 – Young Victoria

January – The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus; Broken Embraces; A Single Man

Post-January – The White Ribbon; The Last Station; A Prophet

TBA – The Road; The Messenger

As noted above, both the films and release dates are tentative – meaning that some of the above titles may not make it to the Keystone Arts (or any other area theater) at all.  So goes life in the nation’s 42nd or 43rd market for theatrical films….

(And the reason the Keystone Arts shows so much in the way of mainstream bullstuff?  A logical guess would be that these movies (in general) make relatively more money at the theater than do most of the art movies they show.  I try to do my part by seeing as many art movies as I can at the theater – although that isn’t that many, these days – and seeing the mainstream films shown by the Keystone Arts at other theaters, when I see them at all.  I have read comments from several of you out there indicating that you do the same.  But until a good number of others in the area join us in this noble endeavor, we’ll have an “art theater” that shows a lot of non-art movies.  The only other alternative I can think of – standing outside of the Keystone Arts and intimidating would-be customers into seeing stuff like Love Happens at some other theater – might have some possible legal/ethical problems.)

In Indian film news, Rocket Singh: Salesman of the Year now has some show times up on the manoranjaninc site.  It is now set to start at the Georgetown 14 on Friday, December 11, and play through Sunday, December 13.  More shows have also been added for Paa; in addition to the previously announced 9 PM screening on Friday, December 4, it will also be shown at 2 and 9 PM on both Saturday, December 5, and Sunday, December 6.  And the Malayalam-language epic Pazhassi Raja is now scheduled to be shown at 5 PM on Sunday, December 13, and at 7:30 PM on Monday, December 14, at the G14.

After Dark’s Horrorfest – So I told you last week that I had registered for the forum on the site for Horrorfest 2010, but had heard nothing as to whether or not my registration had been accepted.  Apparently, though, they don’t tell you that sort of thing.  A few days ago, I decided to try to log on to the forum, just in case my registration had gone through – and I was able to log in and post.  So if you try to register yourself, don’t sit around waiting for an e-mail from AfterDark – just wait a while, and then try to log in.

In any event, I did request that Horrorfest 2010 play in central Indiana once I logged in.  If you want to do the same, register at the site and make your posting ASAP – the fest starts January 29.

HISTORICAL FOOTNOTE – Twenty-eight years ago this week, Frankenstein Island opened at three or four area theaters (all of them now long gone, of course).

Of the thousands of movies I have seen in theaters over the years, this has to be one of the top two or three candidates for “Strangest Damn Thing I Ever Saw on a Big Screen.”*

Robert Clarke (Hideous Sun Demon), Steve Brodie, John Carradine, Cameron Mitchell, Andrew Duggan and Katherine Victor star in the final film from director/writer/editor/distributor/actor and (according to some who knew him) part-time conman Jerry Warren.  I won’t try to describe it further here – there are reviews aplenty on the web, and clips on Youtube – but if you have a chance, check it out, and see what you think.  Or at least see how many minutes in you make it before you leap out of your chair and rip the disc/tape out of your player.  Whether you use the film as a sleeping aid or get hyp-no-tized by the bizarre visuals and dialogue, you will not forget it – I promise you that.

(And if you enjoy big – if not insurmountable – challenges, see how much sense you can make out of the movie, either as a whole, or on a scene-by-scene basis.  An easier task would be determining how much time the top-billed Carradine appears on-screen; my guess would be three or four minutes, max.)

By the way: I saw an early matinee show of Frankenstein Island at the late, mostly unlamented Glendale IV-V-VI on the Friday or Saturday after it opened.  I recall to this day that the vast majority of my fellow audience members that afternoon were kids.  It looked like most of them had been dropped off at the theater for a PG-rated “monster” movie while mom shopped at the mall across the street – although there were also some moms in the theater, accompanying their kids (apparently in some sort of “We’ll watch the movie and then we’ll go shopping” trade-off.)  To this day, I wonder how many kids had some brain cells permanently warped by being exposed to sights like the floating ghost head of Dr. Frankenstein (Carradine) talking about “The power! THE POWER!!” To see this film again is to weep, in a way – sights like this shall not be seen again on theater screens.

Ah, well…. such is progress.

(*Another contender would be Sonny Boy, which starred another Carradine – David – in a one-of-a-kind performance that demands to be seen without reading ANYTHING further in the way of reviews, synopses, or etc.  If you can stand the sight of a little (?) blood, then this, too, is essential viewing.)