“Tim’s Vermeer” opens Friday at Sundance. PG-13, 1:20, three and a half stars out of four.
About a decade ago, I was lucky enough to do phone interviews with both Penn Jillette and his partner Teller ahead of an appearance at the old Madison Civic Center. I asked Jillette, after years of doing the same illusions over and over again before audiences, what kept him interested?
“Better Living Through Chemistry” opens Friday at Sundance Cinemas. R, 1:31, two stars out of four.
“Better Living Through Chemistry” opens with a clever credits sequence, as the camera glides over a HO-scale model town with every tree, every citizen lovingly reproduced in miniature — right down to the tiny plastic couple having sex by an open window.
Unfortunately, it quickly becomes clear that the characters in the movie aren’t much more realistic than the plastic figurines.
Tickets for the 2014 Wisconsin Film Festival went on sale Saturday, and each day between now and the start of the festival on April 3, I’ll be zooming in on one of the more than 140 films playing at the festival. If you have suggestions about films you’d like to know more about as you’re planning your festival experience, let me know in comments.
“Le Week-End” (Sunday, April 6, 3:45 p.m., Capitol Theater)
“No one can make my blood boil like you do.” “That’s the sign of a deep connection.”
Tickets for the 2014 Wisconsin Film Festival went on sale Saturday, and each day between now and the start of the festival on April 3, I’ll be zooming in on one of the more than 140 films playing at the festival. If you have suggestions about films you’d like to know more about as you’re planning your festival experience, let me know in comments.
“Village at the End of the World” (Sunday, April 6, 1:45 p.m., Capitol Theater)
Ever wanted to get away from it all? Sarah Gavron’s documentary “Village at the End of the World” takes the viewer to one of the most remote places on the planet — the tiny Greenland fishing village of Niaqornat. The remote location has a stark and eerie beauty, but it’s still very much on this planet. Even out there, in a village with 60 people, there is drama to be found.
Tickets for the 2014 Wisconsin Film Festival went on sale Saturday, and each day between now and the start of the festival on April 3, I’ll be zooming in on one of the more than 140 films playing at the festival. If you have suggestions about films you’d like to know more about as you’re planning your festival experience, let me know in comments.
“The Auction” (Sunday, April 6, 11:30 a.m, UW Cinematheque, and Wednesday, April 9, 1:45 p.m., Sundance Cinemas)
The official English-language translation of French-Canadian filmmaker Sebastien Pilote’s new film seems fairly benign, if accurate. But the literal translation gets more deeply at the emotionally wrenching heart of the film. “Le Demantelement”; “The Dismantling.”
Pick of the week: “Das Boot: Director’s Cut“: Wolfgang Petersen’s film about the tense mission of a German U-Boat is a claustrophobic masterpiece, and this director’s cut adds another hour of footage to the film.
Well, that didn’t take long.
Tickets for the 2014 Wisconsin Film Festival went on sale at noon on Saturday, March 8. A little over three hours later, festival organizers posted on Facebook that they already had two sellouts.
Tickets for the 2014 Wisconsin Film Festival went on sale Saturday, and each day between now and the start of the festival on April 3, I’ll be zooming in on one of the more than 140 films playing at the festival. If you have suggestions about films you’d like to know more about as you’re planning your festival experience, let me know in comments.
“Happy Christmas” (6:45 p.m. Friday, April 4 and 2:45 p.m. Saturday, April 5, Sundance Cinemas)
In the time it takes me to write this blog post, Joe Swanberg will have made another movie.
The 2014 Wisconsin Film Festival schedule went live on Thursday, and each day between now and the start of the festival on April 3, I’ll be zooming in on one of the more than 140 films playing at the festival. If you have suggestions about films you’d like to know more about as you’re planning your festival experience, let me know in comments.
“Obvious Child” (Tuesday, April 8, 2:30 p.m. and Thursday, April 10, 8:45 p.m., Sundance Cinemas) — I was all alone on this one at the Sundance Film Festival.
Audiences, and most critics, loved this debut film from Gillian Robespierre and agreed it would be a breakout film for Jenny Slate, so good on “Saturday Night Live” and as Jean-Ralphio’s sister on “Parks and Recreation.” And I’m with them there — Slate is very funny as a fearlessly raunchy stand-up comedian working New York clubs. She’s so relentlessly, unabashedly raw, but in such a sweet way, like she doesn’t get what the fuss is about.
The 2014 Wisconsin Film Festival schedule went live on Thursday, and each day between now and the start of the festival on April 3, I’ll be zooming in on one of the more than 140 films playing at the festival. If you have suggestions about films you’d like to know more about as you’re planning your festival experience, let me know in comments.
“Kumiko, The Treasure Hunter” (Sunday, April 6 at 8:30 p.m and Monday, April 7 at 8:30 p.m., Sundance)
Of all the films I saw at the Sundance Film Festival in January, the one that immediately leaped out at me as a perfect fit for our own Wisconsin Film Festival was — well, it was “Life Itself,” the Roger Ebert documentary. But the distributor seems to be keeping that one off the festival circuit in advance of a summer theatrical release.
Madison Movie 