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Interviews

In Theaters: 'Season of the Witch,' 'Country Strong,' and...

By Katie Walsh
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January 7, 2011 4:43 AM
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4 Comments

Probably Best to Hit Up Your Netflix InsteadYikes, guys. YIKES. It is really dismal for new releases this week. REALLY dismal. The first opening Friday of 2011 is kicking off with not a bang but a fizzle, as is traditional for the first week of January, which really should just be deemed Oscar Catch-Up Week-- go see one of the excellent releases from the last couple of weeks ("Blue Valentine," "True Grit," "The Fighter," "Rabbit Hole," "Another Year") or rent something ("The Kids Are Al Rright") to improve your chances of sweeping the Oscar pool, cause it's ugly out there. It could be possibly entertaining, as the inimitable Nic Cage 2.0 brings his delightful brand of crazy to "Season of the Witch," and most unlikable Oscar winner ever Gwyneth Paltrow gets her twang on in "Country Strong," and those performances are sure to provide some HI-larious high camp entertainment. If you're, you know, into that kind of thing.

By Christopher Bell
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January 7, 2011 3:07 AM
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4 Comments

Movies tend to to depict jail in one, collective fashion: scummy, bleak, frightening. Juvenile prison, however, is rarely touched upon in cinema. For this writer's money, the only film to represent it at all was the pretty terrible "United States of Leland." Although the inclusion of classes, work, sport, etc. are more or less offered in "big boy" prison, the way juvie implements them make it feel more like a super strict boarding school than a place of punishment. Quite an oddity indeed, so much that it's a wonder why few filmmakers have taken a dip into that world. Leave it to Romania, motherland of broody art house affairs, to set one of their realist dramas in the untapped locale. "If I Want To Whistle, I Whistle," the second feature by Florin Serban and Romania's official entry to the Academy Awards, captures the bizarre summer camp vibe well but fails to conjure up any mystery or surprise in the narrative, ultimately going down the road of predictability.