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AFI FEST 2009: Halloween Movies

The Loved Ones by Sean Byrne (top); The Hole by Joe Dante (bottom)

AFI FEST 2009 presented by Audi has announced the list of films scheduled for Halloween. They are:

Joe Dante’s The Hole
Sean Byrne’s The Loved Ones
Ted Kotcheff’s Wake in Fright
Michael Stephenson’s Best Worst Movie

All four films will screen on Saturday, October 31, at the Mann Chinese 6 Theatres in Hollywood.
Presented in 3-D — a first for a feature film at AFI FEST — Joe Dante’s thriller The Hole follows two young brothers who "stumble upon a mysterious hole in their basement that houses an evil force that can create a physical manifestation of their deep-seated fears. After unwittingly unleashing [...]

THE KILLING KIND – Ann Sothern – d: Curtis Harrington

The Killing Kind (1973)
Direction: Curtis Harrington
Screenplay: Tony Crechales and George Edwards
Cast: Ann Sothern, John Savage, Ruth Roman, Cindy Williams, Luana Anders, Sue Bernard, Marjorie Eaton, Peter Brocco
 

 

When I read that The Psychotronic Encyclopedia of Film described Curtis Harrington’s The Killing Kind as "a seldom-seen sickie" I just knew I had to see it. And it was well worth my time.
After a young man, Terry Lambert (John Savage), is released from prison for a rape he was "forced" to commit, strange things begin to happen. He returns home to live in his mother’s boarding-house and spies on one of her tenants (Cindy Williams). But spying is not the only perversion on Terry’s mind. He strives to get [...]

THE LIMEY d: Steven Soderbergh

The Limey (1999)
Direction: Steven Soderbergh
Screenplay: Lem Dobbs
Cast: Terence Stamp, Lesley Ann Warren, Luis Guzman, Peter Fonda, Barry Newman, Joe Dallesandro, Nicky Katt, Amelia Heinle, Melissa George

 

 
By Dan Schneider of Cosmoetica:
Director Steven Soderbergh’s 1999 so-called crime drama The Limey is easily the best Soderbergh effort I’ve seen. That’s partly due to the innovative narrative structure, which makes all but the last few minutes of this great film a flashback. The rest is due to an excellent script by Lem Dobbs, whose other great success came a year earlier, in Alex Proyas’ sci-fi thriller Dark City. Both films, despite their apparent differences, are acutely focused on human memory and [...]

THE LIMEY II – Terence Stamp

THE LIMEY – Part I
Aside from memory, there are superbly rendered details that distill the characters: Wilson radiates affection for Eduardo’s help in tracking down Valentine by fondly calling him Sancho (as in Panza). All of these things — along with Eduardo’s and Elaine’s motivations, and the portrayal of the relationship between the hitmen — work well. In fact, they work so well precisely because there are no specifics, but generalities sharply etched so that the viewer ‘feels,’ as well as understands, the motivations and relationships. That allows the viewer to feel what goes on inside Wilson, thus creating a stronger identification with him than would be gotten were all things laid [...]

Ben Affleck, Helen Mirren, Rachel McAdams in STATE OF PLAY Photos

Ben Affleck

Helen Mirren

Rachel McAdams

Ben Affleck

Robin Wright Penn, Ben Affleck
Photos: © Universal Pictures
Click on the images to enlarge them.

 
Ben Affleck, Russell Crowe in STATE OF PLAY Photos
Sylvia Miles, John Barry at MIDNIGHT COWBOY Screening
Oscar 2009: Robert Pattinson, Sophia Loren, Kate Winslet, Reese Witherspoon
Oscar 2009: Jennifer Aniston, Penélope Cruz, Zac Efron, Daniel Craig
Oscar 2009: Penélope Cruz, Angelina Jolie, Brad Pitt, Tina Fey

Ben Affleck, Russell Crowe in STATE OF PLAY Photos

Ben Affleck, Russell Crowe

Directed by Kevin Macdonald and adapted by Matthew Michael Carnahan, Tony Gilroy, and Billy Ray from Paul Abbott’s television series, the thriller State of Play stars Russell Crowe, Ben Affleck, Helen Mirren, Rachel McAdams, Robin Wright Penn, Jeff Daniels, Justin Bateman, and Michael Berresse.
State of Play opens in the US on April 19.
Official site
Ben Affleck, Helen Mirren, Rachel McAdams in STATE OF PLAY
Photos: © Universal Pictures
Click on the images to enlarge them.

Helen Mirren, Rachel McAdams, Russell Crowe

Helen Mirren, Russell Crowe

Jeff Daniels, Russell Crowe

Russell Crowe, Ben Affleck

 
Sylvia Miles, John Barry at MIDNIGHT COWBOY Screening
Oscar 2009: Robert Pattinson, Sophia Loren, Kate Winslet, Reese Witherspoon
Oscar 2009: Jennifer Aniston, Penélope Cruz, Zac Efron, Daniel Craig
Oscar 2009: Penélope Cruz, Angelina Jolie, Brad [...]

BREACH – Ryan Phillippe, Chris Cooper

Breach (2007)
Direction: Billy Ray
Screenplay: Adam Mazer, William Rotko, and Billy Ray
Cast: Chris Cooper, Ryan Phillippe, Laura Linney, Caroline Dhavernas, Gary Cole, Kathleen Quinlan, Dennis Haysbert, Bruce Davison
 

Ryan Phillippe, Chris Cooper in Breach
 

A sophisticated spy thriller directed by Billy Ray, Breach creates suspense through intense dialogue exchanges and strong character development, thus avoiding big explosions, repetitive gunfights, and wild car chases.
The film is based on the true story of FBI agent Robert Hanssen (Chris Cooper), a traitor who provoked one of the biggest security breaches in U.S. history by leaking top-secret information to the Soviet Union. The events depicted in Breach are the ones that led up to Hanssen’s arrest on February 18, 2001.
At first, we are [...]

THE ASSASSINATION OF RICHARD NIXON – Sean Penn

The Assassination of Richard Nixon (2004)
Direction: Niels Mueller
Screenplay: Niels Mueller and Kevin Kennedy
Cast: Sean Penn, Naomi Watts, Don Cheadle, Jack Thompson, Michael Wincott, Brad William Henke
 

 

Although technically a psychosocial drama about those for whom the American Dream is nothing more than a pathological delusion, Niels Mueller’s The Assassination of Richard Nixon actually works as a suspenseful horror movie. From the very start, we know that something dreadful is about to happen. As the fact-based story inexorably progresses toward its bloody climax, the suspense keeps increasing until the violence, depicted in brutal detail, explodes on screen. That’s the stuff that nightmares are made of.
As depicted by Emmanuel Lubezki’s appropriately gritty, washed-out cinematography, it all begins in the winter of 1974, as [...]

MARATHON MAN – Dustin Hoffman, Laurence Olivier

Marathon Man (1976)
Direction: John Schlesinger
Screenplay: William Goldman, from Goldman’s novel
Cast: Dustin Hoffman, Laurence Olivier, Roy Scheider, William Devane, Marthe Keller, Fritz Weaver, Richard Bright, Marc Lawrence
 

 
The worst sin a good-guy-vs.-bad-guy movie can commit is to — unintentionally — have us root for the evildoer. That is exactly what screenwriter William Goldman (adapting his own novel, reportedly with some help from Robert Towne) and director John Schlesinger, he of Darling, Midnight Cowboy, and Sunday, Bloody Sunday, achieve in the thrill-less "thriller" Marathon Man. Adding insult to injury, the villain I came to root for was a horrific Nazi war criminal, while the hero that bored me to tears was a pacifist Jew.
Now, how could anyone manage to [...]

FROZEN – Shirley Henderson – d: Juliet McKoen

Frozen (2005)
Director: Juliet McKoen
Screenplay: Juliet McKoen and Jayne Steel
Cast: Shirley Henderson, Roshan Seth, Richard Armitage, Jayne Ashbourne, Les Audley, Nick Bagnall, Jamie Sives
 

 

The tale of a young fishery worker obsessed with the mysterious disappearance of her older sister, Frozen is a curious mélange of psychological drama and metaphysical mystery-thriller. The end result, however, is a mixed bag. The story, though conceptually intriguing, lacks coherence, and Scottish actress Shirley Henderson is seriously miscast as the borderline-pathological heroine.
On the positive side, director Juliet McKoen ably captures the atmosphere of gloom and emptiness of a drab fishing town on Britain’s northwestern coast, while the film’s key revelation, even though it trails several farfetched plot developments, is appropriately surprising and disturbing.
What to [...]

JFK – Kevin Costner – d: Oliver Stone

JFK (1991)
Director: Oliver Stone
Screenplay: Oliver Stone, Zachary Sklar, from Jim Marrs’ book Crossfire: The Plot That Killed Kennedy and Jim Garrison’s book On the Trail of the Assassins
Cast: Kevin Costner, Sissy Spacek, Tommy Lee Jones, Kevin Bacon, Gary Oldman, Joe Pesci, Laurie Metcalf, Jack Lemmon, Sally Kirkland, Jay O. Sanders, Edward Asner, Walter Matthau, Vincent D’Onofrio, Michael Rooker, John Candy, Donald Sutherland
 

 
PARANOID? MOI?
If it’s an Oliver Stone film, it must be bombastic, sentimental, clunky, and controversial. With the exception of "clunky," JFK is all of the above. It is also riveting, earnest, dishonest, moving, irritating, out-of-control paranoid, and, more frequently than one might expect, outright brilliant. In sum, Oliver Stone’s 1991 political thriller about a determined district attorney’s [...]

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