Thinking Outside the Multiplex
by MIKE MACCOLLUM
Sometimes- like the last few months, for example- it’s all too easy to be a pessimist about the movie scene in Indiana: a lot of cool-sounding films never get any theatrical play here- while at the same time, we get multiple copies of the same old stuff that opens everywhere else, with a list of titles that might as well have been cut and pasted from one mall multiplex to another. This week feels like a long-delayed antidote to the last few months- an extremely well-reviewed Romanian film makes it to the Keystone Art Cinema in Indianapolis this Friday, a new documentary opens at the IMAX in downtown Indy, The Runaways starts at a theater in Schererville- and it looks like some other excellent-sounding movies are on their way well as well…. Read more 
DVD of the Week – The Princess and the Frog (2009)
by HELEN GEIB
My favorite animated film of 2009 comes out on DVD and Blu-ray today, and as expected with a Disney animated film, the release comes with choices. If what you want is the movie, there’s a single disc DVD edition with a few features. Paying the Blu-ray premium for the single disc Blu-ray edition gets you get a bunch more special features. For media technology progressives there’s a three disc edition with the same special features as the single disc Blu-ray, plus both Blu-ray and DVD copies of the film and a digital copy. Read more
Thinking Outside the Multiplex
by MIKE MACCOLLUM
Ever since I started writing this column almost a year ago, I have written about limited release films opening in Indiana in a given week. Each and every week since then, as far as I can recall, there has been at least one new limited release film opening in Indianapolis- at the Keystone Art Cinema and/or the Georgetown 14 and/or some other theater. This week is different- the only new theatrical movie opening in limited release in Indiana is coming to another town. Sure, the Academy Award Winner for Best Picture is re-opening at a number of theaters around the state this week, including a pair in Indy- but the only new limited release movie is…. Well, to see what it is, and where it will be playing – along with all of the movies holding over in the state, and movies opening elsewhere across the US- read on below…. Read more
Top Ten Films of 2009 by Nir Shalev
by NIR SHALEV
10. The Informant! (Steven Soderbergh)
Steven Soderbergh’s follow up to the four and a half hour epic Che (2008) is a comedy based on an unbelievably real story and featuring Matt Damon. This movie is hilarious, shot well, directed well, performed exceptionally well, and is, like I said hilarious. The score by Marvin Hamlisch (Woody Allen’s Bananas (1973)) is kooky and zany and fits the atmosphere and style perfectly. A very fine film filled with many wonderful moments. Read more
DVD of the Week – Review of Up in the Air (2009)
by HELEN GEIB
The hero of writer-director Jason Reitman’s Up in the Air is Ryan Bingham, a man whose job description is firing people. His customers are companies that are too craven to fire their own employees. Since cravenness knows no geographic boundaries he spends much of his time literally up in the air, flying around the country from one job to the next. Figuratively speaking, the lives of the people he fires are left up in the air by his visits. For his part, Ryan loves his job because it dovetails with his philosophy of “life is movement, movement is life;” he aspires to be perpetually up in the air, in both the literal and figurative senses. Read more
Rewind: Films of the 60s, 70s, 80s – Fathom (1967)
by RICHARD WINTERS
The spy genre became a big craze in the late ‘60s with the success of the James Bond films. Studios were busily coming out with either imitations, like the Matt Helm films with Dean Martin, or spoofs of the genre. This film, starring the voluptuous Raquel Welch, is a combination of both. Read more
Movie Review – Brooklyn’s Finest (2010)
by HELEN GEIB
The first scene of director Antoine Fuqua’s Brooklyn’s Finest is a manifesto of earnest moral purpose. Two men are talking in a car at night. The car is parked on a deserted, poorly lit street. One of the men is telling an anecdote of a recent brush with the law; it is clear from his story that he is a career criminal. We don’t know anything about the second man other than that he is speaking with the first on terms of equality. Although delivered almost like a shaggy dog story, the gist of the anecdote is plainly that the world is a place of moral confusion: the wrong thing can be the right thing if done for the right motive; some things are simultaneously wrong and right; right and wrong are questions of degree. There is an act of sudden violence. Read more
Top Ten Films of 2009 by Tom Nixon
by TOM NIXON
10. In The Loop
You may not believe that, and I may not believe that, but by God it’s a useful hypocrisy. Read more
Thinking Outside the Multiplex
by MIKE MACCOLLUM
For a while, it looked like the only new limited-release movie opening in Indiana on March 5 was a kiddie movie – but as it turned out, The Ghost Writer saved Indiana (or at least Indianapolis) fans of limited release films from getting only a strawberry-shortcake flavored lump of coal in theaters this Friday. Things are also pretty slow on the new art film front at other theaters across the US this week, for some reason (most likely a combination of the Oscars and Alice in Wonderland, I’m guessing). To see what is new out there – along with the relatively few holdovers, special screenings and so forth throughout the state this week – read on below…. Read more
Hollywood Releases Preview – March, 2010
by HELEN GEIB
March 5
Alice in Wonderland – Tim Burton adapts Lewis Carroll. Sort of. In 3-D. Teenager Alice (Mia Wasikowska) returns to Wonderland to help the Mad Hatter (Johnny Depp) end the despotic rule of the Queen of Hearts (Helena Bonham Carter). The question in everyone’s minds is how Burton got hired by Disney to make a family-friendly film after Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. I still plan to see it, though for the art direction as much as anything. Read more
