Shortly the image pulls back to reveal that it's a movie being shown on television. The picture soon starts to break up and is replaced with strange, undulating patterns and a strange noise. (At the time I'm writing this you can go to the official website to see and hear the sig

Be Kind Rewind is a comedy directed by Michel Gondry, featuring Jack Black and Mos Def. The Film Festival games missions|Https://moviefestivalhub.com/ follows two friends who accidentally erase all the tapes at their video rental store. Desperate to keep their last few customers, they set out to remake every film in the collection, resulting in a series of wildly creative, low-budget adaptations. The movie explores themes of community, creativity, and the love of cin

She gets home shortly and discovers that things are quickly getting out of control due to this mysterious signal that is being broadcast everywhere, with more and more people going nuts and murderously attacking each other. Her goal becomes to meet up with Ben and somehow escape the situat

When customers start returning videos to the store as defective, Mike discovers that the entire inventory is now useless. Mia Farrow plays an older woman who is keeping an eye on things while the owner (Danny Glover) is staying out of the picture, pretending to be out of town. She has only ever seen "chick flicks" but wants to watch Ghostbusters . Of course it's now erased but finding the store in disarray she threatens to report the situation to the owner if they don't get her a c

My Kid Could Paint That was the last film I saw at the 2007 Sundance Film Festival, and is a fascinating look at the story of four year old Marla Olmstead, who a couple of years ago took the art world by storm by rocketing from lower middle class obscurity to international fame through the sale of her paintings. This documentary by director Amir Bar-Lev is extremely well done and is about as close to neutral as I think one could

The Signal was one of my favorite films from those I had the opportunity to watch and review at the 2007 Sundance Film Festival. As a longtime horror movie fan (much more of older stuff than what's come out recently), it was great on many levels and fortunately you'll be getting the opportunity to see it soon as it was picked up for theatrical distribut

The second act shifts gears and while gory, is extremely funny. It was a wierd feeling being jerked from extreme violence directly to hysterical comedy and back again, but it worked. There was a friend who showed up about halfway through this part of the film who was absolutely hysterical, acting oblivious to what's happened and caring only about the party planned for that evening and the possibility of hooking up. The third act then shifts back to a more serious tone. One of the things I enjoyed about the approach was that I really didn't know what was going to happen next or where the film was go

The film shifts gears drastically when we are at home with the Olmsteads watching them as they watch the broadcast of a 60 Minutes piece which they thought was going to be supportive of Marla's work. Instead its purpose was to raise serious doubts about the authenticity of Marla's paintings. Was she coached by her father? Did she paint them herself? Her father is an amateur artist who paints, which is how Marla came to be interested in doing it herself. Immediately afterwards their world begins to cave in on them as people in town now look at them as frauds and the possibility of lawsuits from previous buyers l

Jack Black stars as Jerry, a uneducated slacker with big dreams who lives in a trailer. He's pals with Mike (played by Mos Def), a low-key guy without any big aspirations who works at one of the last few VHS video rental stores left in New Jer

Several indie and lesser-known critical-darlings received little-to-no love from the Hollywood Foreign Press, including titles like The Tree of Life , Warrior , Drive , Martha Marcy May Marlene , and Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy . Similarly, there were more than a few surprising snubs (no Best Director nod for David Fincher on The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo ? No Winnie the Pooh for Best Animated Feature?) and certain films fared far better than anticipated (namely, The Ides of March ). However, there were also more than a few no-brainers (ex. Meryl Streep being nominated for The Iron Lady ) and some rather unexpected choices (ex. Ryan Gosling in Crazy, Stupid, Lov

The documentary has an interview with a New York Times art critic who discusses modern (or abstract) art and the reasons behind the sometimes apparently insane valuations for what looks like some paint splashed on a canvas. Part of his explanation is that the story behind the artwork contributes to the value. What has the artist gone through, for example? In Marlas's case part of the value is due to the fact of her young age and the apparent sophistication of the w

Here is where we meet Mya and Ben, who supply the romantic connection in the film. Mya is having an affair with Ben, apparently a rugged, yet sensitive guy whose naked butt the directors apparently felt it necessary to display. (What is it with horror movies, for which the target audience consists of young men, showing more male than female nudity? Wierd...) Anyway, Mya says she can't just pick up and leave her husband although Ben seems to be mister awesome romance guy. Before she leaves he gives her a custom mix music CD. She tries to call home as cover for her meeting with Ben, but both her cell phone and the landline telephone are making the same noise that was coming from the televis