Movies
By Geronimo Rodriguez
Daily Cougar Staff
Nicole Kidman follows her Moulin Rouge
and The Others performances with the romantic comedy Birthday Girl.
In the film, John Buckingham, played by
Ben Chaplin, orders a mail-order bride over the Internet after he grows
tired of
waiting for his fate to find him. Kidman
plays Nadia, the Russian bride who brings twists and turns into the English
banker's
life when her Russian "cousins" show up
to celebrate her birthday.
Slackers is the latest teen comedy Hollywood
has to offer since, well, Orange County. Rushmore's Jason Schwartzman
stars as Ethan, a "geek" who stumbles
onto a scam that has a couple of college students receiving perfect grades
without any
effort.
Ethan gets things going his way by threatening
to blackmail the guys unless they help him get the attention of his longtime
crush. The film, directed by first-timer
Dewey Nicks, stars James King, Devon Sawa, James Segel and Michael C. Maronna.
The children's drama The Taliesin Jones,
also known as The Testimony of Taliesin Jones, follows the life of a boy
named
Taliesin Jones. Jones, played by newcomer
Jean-Paul Macleod, searches for the answers to life's biggest questions
after his
mum leaves home and his father and brother
provide no guidance.
In something similar to Billy Eliot, Jones
looks to his piano teacher Billy Evans, played by Ian Bannen (Waking Ned
Devine),
for a miracle that will change his life.
Directed by Martin Duffy (The Bumblebee
Flies Anyway), the Welsh film stars Jonathan Pryce (Ronin), Griff Rhys
Jones
(Staggered) and Geraldine James (Moll
Flanders).
Another film, In July, opens exclusively
at the Angelika Film Center this weekend. Directed by Fatih Akin, the subtitled
German film stars Run Lola Run's Moritz
Bleibtreu as Daniel, a physics teacher whose drab lifestyle changes when
he falls
in love with a beautiful Turkish girl
named Melek and follows her to Istanbul.
On this journey, Daniel learns how to make
his own fate and shares his newfound lease on life with a young woman named
Juli, played by Christiane Paul.
The Angelika is also beginning its Sensational
Cinema program, in which old films are re-released so audiences can view
classic films on the silver screen.
The first film of the series is Bangkok
Dangerous, a Thai film subtitled in English that was written by twin brothers
Oxide and
Danny Pang. It follows a deaf mute, Kong,
who is recruited and trained to be a hit man by a professional assassin,
Jo, and his
girlfriend Aom. Kong becomes a cold, calculated
killer in this crime-ridden thriller.
If you're looking for potential Oscar nominees,
an Italian drama, The Son's Room, is favored to be nominated for Best
Foreign Film. Director Nanni Moretti stars
as Giovanni, an Italian psychoanalyst who must overcome the death of his
son.
The film also stars Laura Morante as Paola,
the woman who becomes obsessed with finding the girl her son was secretly
close to.
Also, Benjamin Bratt's performance in Pinero
has gained some acclaim. Bratt, whose most notable work is on television's
Law & Order, takes on the true story
of Miguel Pinero, the Latin American poet who led a radical lifestyle from
his youth, into
his prime and until his death from AIDS.
Just as Javier Bardem's performance as
a daring poet won him acceptance with Before Night Falls, Bratt finds the
same
opportunity with Pinero to open a few
more doors, acting-wise.
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