(Photo: Kino International)

This weekend's (possibly) worthwhile cinematic happenings around New York:

--Im Sangsoo's The President's Last Bang (right) received one of the more ambivalent reactions from critics who saw it at this year's New York Film Festival, drawing a consensus that seemed to appreciate the film even as it was lost in its messy narrative and overt South Korean political satire. The film's bloody, darkly humorous treatment of a 1979 assassination stirred an uproar in its homeland, where the late president's family sued Sangsoo and where the public at large seemed unprepared to look at itself through the looking glass of Dr. Strangelove. At any rate, Bang goes to the New York jury today, which I am sure will settle this once and for all with its impeccable, incomparable taste and discernment.

--My favorite review of the week belongs to none other than Michael Atkinson, whom I have assailed here numerous times and whom thus deserves a bit of credit when credit is due. His excoriation of Wim Wenders' Land of Plenty contains more than its share of heartbreak and revolt at Wenders' slippery slope into hackdom ("Wenders shoots on location, in digital video, and yet the huge shagginess of reality evades him on every front"), but more interestingly, Atkinson seems to give up on a man whose obvious talent cannot possibly have just passed like a kidney stone. Is this fair? Find out this weekend, when Wenders will be on hand at IFC Center to field your questions about Land of Plenty and anything else that may be worrying you about his decline. Be polite, though--I mean, this guy did direct Paris, Texas, you know.

--And finally, taking a cue from the charming folks at Cinematical, draw straws with your friends to see who will be the "lucky" one who gets to watch Rupert Wainwright's remake of the John Carpenter not-really-classic The Fog. It appears that Columbia did not open the film up to press screenings, thus pardoning themselves from an excess of bad reviews with the inevitable headlines cracking on The Fog's "zero-visibility" or some similarly retarded snark. But hey--anything with David Foster's juice behind it (he has "Love Theme From St. Elmo's Fire" to beat) might be a wreck worth your time, if not your $10.75. Nevertheless, it looks like you are on your own.