Cinematical

TITLE: Me and Orson Welles
DIRECTED BY: Richard Linklater
STARS: Zac Efron, Claire Danes, Christian McKay

WHAT IT'S ABOUT: In 1937, a young actor (Efron) gets the chance of a lifetime when he's invited to join the cast of a new production of Shakespeare's Julius Caesar ... directed by the young, brash boy genius Orson Welles (Christian McKay). Of course, the scheming, plotting and tragedy isn't confined to the stage. ...

WHY WE'RE EXCITED ABOUT IT: A number of reasons: Welles has always made for great drama on-screen; Efron may finally demonstrate there's more to him than endless iterations of the High School Musical formula; Danes is turning into a truly interesting actress with the passing of time. But ultimately, the reason we're most psyched to see this comes down to director Linklater -- who's proven he can handle both the energy of youth (Dazed and Confused, Before Sunrise) and the technical challenges of period pieces (The Newton Boys). Linklater's a filmmaker looking for a mainstream hit, and the mix of high-class material and Efron's star power may be just what's needed to shove him into the mainstream.

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TITLE: JCVD
DIRECTED BY: Mabrouk El Mechri
STARS: Jean-Claude Van Damme

WHAT IT'S ABOUT: Jean-Claude Van Damme, washed-up action star plays ... Jean-Claude Van Damme, washed-up action star. Trying to deal with a career in decline and various personal crises, the Muscles from Brussels stumbles into a bank robbery -- and has to explain to everyone around him that life is not, in fact, like the movies.

WHY WE'RE EXCITED ABOUT IT: Believe it or not, this was actually one of the most buzzed-about films in the marketplace at Cannes this year -- and the idea of Jean-Claude going meta and post-modern can't help but bring a smile to anyone with memories of the actor's '80s heyday. Plus, JCVD's also the opening film for Midnight Madness -- and sounds like the perfect pick for the maniacs who stay up late at Toronto.

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TITLE: Religulous
DIRECTED BY: Larry Charles
STARS: Bill Maher

WHAT IT'S ABOUT: Stand-up comedian Bill Maher tours the globe, talking with people of faith ... to question, deride and challenge their beliefs. While big-name atheism is big on the bestseller charts recently thanks to Christopher Hitchens, Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris, Religulous is the first big-name documentary to take on the world of faith. Directed by Larry Charles (Borat), Religulous seems to promise a mix of thought-provoking commentary and laugh-inducing uncomfortable silences.

WHY WE'RE EXCITED ABOUT IT: After months of Presidential candidates droning on about what their faith means to them, doesn't a sharp shot of pointed questions and cold, hard logic sound refreshing? Maher's also far smarter than his shtick seems, and after Borat, we'd watch anything Charles offered as a follow-up. We're also looking forward to counting the number of times the phrase "preaching to the converted" gets used in Religulous's reviews.

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TITLE: Miracle at St. Anna
DIRECTED BY: Spike Lee
STARS: Derek Luke, Laz Alonzo, Joseph Gordon-Levitt

WHAT IT'S ABOUT: In 1944, a group of black American soldiers were trapped behind enemy lines in occupied Italy ... and their ordeal is the key to unraveling a mysterious murder in the present day. With James McBride adapting his own novel for the big screen, Miracle at St Anna would already be intriguing ...

WHY WE'RE EXCITED ABOUT IT: ... But the fact Spike Lee's in the director's chair seals the deal to make this one of the must-see films this year at Toronto. All controversy aside (and that's saying a lot, considering how firmly Lee challenged Clint Eastwood's judgment about race and representation in Eastwood's World War II films), Lee's great with actors, tackles tough material head-on and has even turned into a great action and suspense director in recent years. If any filmmaker's been able to turn their complicated, complex, challenging love for America into fascinating moviemaking, it's Lee -- and we can't wait to see this film.

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TITLE: Rachel Getting Married
DIRECTED BY: Jonathan Demme
STARS: Anne Hathaway, Rosemarie DeWitt, Debra Winger

WHAT IT'S ABOUT: Habitual rehab recidivist Kym (Anne Hathaway) comes home for the wedding of her sister Rachel (Rosemarie DeWitt), and to the complicated embrace of her mom (Debra Winger) and dad (Bill Irwin) . Any and all promises of best behavior are, of course, certain to go awry in this comedy-drama scripted by Jenny Lumet, the daughter of directorial legend Sidney Lumet.

WHY WE'RE EXCITED ABOUT IT: Because this is a classic example of a star-director pair worth looking forward to. After a recent series of great documentaries and glossy entertainments, Jonathan Demme looks to be settling in for a fierce, frank drama about people ... and Hathaway, too often sidelined in light comedy, may finally have a chance to flex the acting chops she demonstrated in her brief-but-bold turn in Brokeback Mountain.

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Medical science tells us that there's a portion of the brain called the R-complex that, nestled low and close to the spinal cord, governs simple, automatic brain functions like respiration and reflex and heart rate; other outlying, larger brain structures cover language, culture, memory and art. I mention this because Death Race, writer-director Paul W.S. Anderson's re-visitation of the 1975 trash-classic Death Race 2000, is wholly, entirely and perfectly designed to appeal to the R-complex portion of your brain. Death Race roars, rages and races down the track, all velocity and visceral violence, unencumbered by logic, sense, reason or dignity. My more evolved brain structures kept objecting to Death Race's more ludicrous contortions as it whipped around its curves, but my R-complex didn't want to hear the high-pitched whining voice of logic and reason; it simply grunted, settled into a soft cushion of popcorn topping and said "Shut up, bigger brain; bald man who talk cool killing now."

With Fall Festival season about to kick off, this week The Rocchi Review features James chatting with Cinematical's Film Festivals Editor Kim Voynar about the strange splendor of the Telluride Film Festival, what the most-anticipated movies will be at this year's Toronto Film Festival and much, much more. Will Zack and Miri Make a Porno make a splash? Will Rachel Getting Married get Anne Hathaway some respect? And does one of the most-anticipated films for Toronto really star Jean-Claude Van Damme? Cinematical's podcast is now available through iTunes; you can subscribe at this link. Also, you can listen directly here at Cinematical by clicking below:



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Gathered to talk about Woody Allen's Vicky Cristina Barcelona, Pénelope Cruz, Rebecca Hall, Chris Messina and Scarlett Johansson all had similar praise for their director and writer -- even if they took different paths to get to the film. Cruz's agent actually reached out to Allen when Vicky Cristina Barcelona was in development, on the off chance Allen might have a role for her: "My agent said ... 'We found out you're doing a movie in Spain, do you want to meet Pénelope?' We met in New York, a very short meeting, which took less than one minute, and he told me 'I saw Volver, and I'm writing this story, it's not finished yet, but if it keeps going in this direction, the script, I think you could be right for this part. ...' He didn't tell me anything more about the story, or the characters, but I felt like we connected; we were laughing, and when I left, the people who work with him told me 'You've been there for such a long time.' ..."

Even after being asked, though, Cruz found the prospect of working with one of film's best-known directors daunting: "You can trust the director -- you're working with Woody Allen, you're working with a genius -- but that doesn't mean you're not going to be doubting yourself. ..."

I felt, after seeing Woody Allen's latest, Vicky Cristina Barcelona, the way I do after I've been to an excellent tapas restaurant; I'd been presented with a series of small moments of flavor and texture and presentation, some more pleasant than others, and while the overall experience didn't add up to a full meal, it was still a sincere pleasure. Allen's been globetrotting lately -- although you can suggest that's been motivated less by some muse of artistic inspiration than by the equally beguiling, if less dignified, seductress of international financing. After several films set in London, Allen's now in Barcelona, Spain, as recently-graduated friends Vicky (Rebecca Hall) and Cristina (Scarlett Johansson) are taking some time to see the world before going back to America and futures as bright and unfixed as a sunlit fogbank.

Staying with family friends Mark and Judy Nash (Kevin Dunn and Patricia Clarkson), Vicky and Cristina take in the sights and experiences of Barcelona. Cristina's able to lose herself in the moment; for Vicky, each summer day's tempered by the certainty that summer will soon end. But one night after an art gallery showing, at an appropriately bohemian venue, Vicky and Cristina are approached by the painter whose work they've just seen, Juan Antonio (Javier Bardem), who proposes they join him as he flies to a small town so they might spend the weekend making love. Vicky's appalled; Cristina's intrigued; Juan Antonio is a laid-back seducer with a ready counter-argument to every objection: "Life is long; life is dull; life is full of pain." Why not have a little fun? It's not enough to talk the girls into agreeing to go to bed with him, but it is enough to get them on-board the plane. ...

Tropic Thunder, starring Ben Stiller as one of a group of runaway actors whose work on a big-budget Vietnam epic goes horribly awry, is a funny, far-fetched mockery of modern Hollywood; the laughs don't maintain anything like a coherent intensity, but when they come, they're big enough to get you through the spaces between them. Some will mistakenly call Tropic Thunder a satire, but Tropic Thunder is in fact an example of satire's boisterous, bumbling sibling, the spoof. A satire's held with a light but precise grip, so the point can slice and the blade can cut; a spoof's more of a club, landing with blunt force and broad impact.

Star and director Stiller attacked the celebrity-industrial complex before, in 2001's Zoolander, and Tropic Thunder has more in common with that film than you might think; Stiller manages to mock action and thrills while also delivering them, and he's got a fine grasp of coarse celebrity behavior. Stiller seems drawn to characters whose self-centered arrogance is mixed in equal measure with self-loathing insecurity. We see an interview clip where Stiller's character, box office star Tugg Speedman, is informed by an interviewer how "Someone close to you said 'One more flop and it's over for him.'" Speedman pauses, and then asks his follow-up: "Somebody said they were close to me?"