Weekend Movie Forecast: <em>Donkey Punch</em> or, um, <em>Inkheart</em>?
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<p>Read the following in your best <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_LaFontaine">Don LaFontaine</a> voice: "After meeting at a nightclub in a Mediterranean resort, seven young adults decide to continue partying aboard a luxury yacht in the middle of the ocean. but when one of them dies in a freak accident, the others argue about what to do, leading to a ruthless fight for survival." That's the description of British film Donkey Punch, and it sounds kinda boss when you give it the LaFointaine treatment. But <a href="http://movies.nytimes.com/2009/01/23/movies/23donk.html?ref=movies">Stephen Holden at the Times</a> sarcastically wonders, <strong>"Will anyone finally escape this floating slaughterhouse? Do you even care?"</strong> </p><p></p>On the other hand, <a href="http://www.villagevoice.com/2009-01-21/film/donkey-punch-exceeds-its-smutty-titling-with-workmanlike-thriller/">Nick Pinkerton at the Village Voice</a> seems to "get it": "The personnel behind Donkey Punch could've released anything with such a "No way" titleâif you haven't been on the Internet since 1999, well, ask aroundâand probably recouped their costs off titillated adolescents trying to slip one past the 'rents. <strong>But they made a workmanlike thriller that works as an (unconscious?) auto-critique of mainstreamed Internet-age hedonism."</strong>
<p>In <em>Inkheart </em>Brendan Fraser plays... There isn't a single person who kept reading after Brendan Fraser is there? Oh, there is. Well, okay one sad, desperately bored person, <em>Inkheart </em>is about this guy named Mo (Fraser), who, when reading a story to his daughter, discovers that he is a "Silvertongue," which means characters he reads about come to life. The catch is that someone from real life also gets trapped in teh book he's reading, so he loses his wife. <a href="http://www.nypost.com/seven/01232009/entertainment/movies/stinkheart_151409.htm">Kyle Smith at the Post</a> has his claws out: "At one point, the crabby [Helen] Mirren figure bursts dramatically into the action on a unicorn, although the drama is partially limited by the fact that she has nothing to do when she gets there. <strong>A sign on her character's house that reads, 'Don't even think of wasting my time' would have been better placed on her agent's door."</strong></p>
<p>The first two installments in the British <em>Underworld</em> series, starring Michael Sheen (David Frost in <em>Frost/Nixon</em>) as a wolfman, have grossed hundreds of millions of dollars. This new installment is an "origins" movie about the grueling war between the vampires and the werewolves, and stars Bill Nighy, whom James Urbaniak <a href="http://gothamist.com/2007/03/19/james_urbaniak.php">once rightfully referred to as God</a>. But <a href="http://www.time.com/time/arts/article/0,8599,1873606,00.html">Time's Richard Corliss</a> seems to think Godâor at least this franchiseâis dead. In his review, titled "Underworld 3: Me No Lycan," he writes, "At the climax, someone tells Lucian that it's finally over. 'No,' he insists, 'this is just beginning.' <strong>Is that a promise or a threat?"</strong></p>
<em>California Dreamin'</em>, the first and only feature directed by Cristian Nemescu, a filmmaker who died in a car accident shortly after completing it, concerns an American military intelligence officer who finds himself stuck in a Romanian backwater called Capalnita in 1999, ensnared in bureaucracy and corruption. <a href="http://movies.nytimes.com/2009/01/23/movies/23drea.html?ref=movies">The Times's A.O. Scott</a> calls it <strong>"a rambunctious, closely observed comedy of cultural collision</strong>... It rambles a bit, but it always has something interesting to say. In particular, I think, to American audiences. Given everything that has happened since, the Kosovo intervention of 1999 may not seem like a terribly relevant or significant moment in history. But viewed through the lens of the Iraq war â which was surely on Mr. Nemescuâs mind in 2006 â this odd little Clinton-era anecdote takes on some unsettling resonances."
<p>According to <a href="http://www.villagevoice.com/2009-01-21/film/tracing-gangland-s-roots-in-crips-bloods-made-in-america/">Ernest Hardy at the Village Voice</a>, the documentary <em>Crips and Bloods: Made in America</em> "employs hip-hop beats and music video aesthetics (quick edits, slick cinematography, artful use of still photography)" to answer the questions "why is there so much violence in South L.A.? What are the historical roots of the Bloods and Crips?" Hardy says, "It's a lot to take in, and [director Stacy] Peralta does an admirable job cramming tons of history and insight into his reportage on how the " 'hood" came to be...Those unfamiliar with the subject matter should use Made in America as the gateway film to check out the superior <em>All Power to the People </em>and <em>Bastards of the Party</em>. <strong>The latter, directed by former Blood Cle Bone Sloan, is the raw, underground joint to Peralta's pop opus."</strong></p>
<em>Of Time and the City </em>is a documentary by poet Terence Davies, whose films deal with "the nature of time, the nature of mortality, the transience of life." This is his first documentary, and its semi-autobiographical themes explore the pains and pleasures of growing up Roman Catholic and gay in postwar Britain. <a href="http://movies.nytimes.com/2009/01/21/movies/21time.html?ref=movies">The Times's A.O. Scott</a> adores it, calling the film, "a deeply personal piece of art that never descends into the confessional or the therapeutic, and a work of social and literary criticism that never lectures or hectors, but rather, with melancholy, tenderness and wit, manages to sing."
<em>Dog Eat Dog</em>, Columbia's first official Academy Award entry for Best Foreign-Language Film; is a story of double-crosses and retribution in Columbia's crime underworld. <a href="http://www.villagevoice.com/2009-01-21/film/dog-eat-dog-is-colombia-s-post-tarantino-gangster-flick/">Adam Hillis at the Village Voice</a> says, "Congratulations, Colombia! <strong>You've caught up with America's rich cinematic tradition and produced one of your own trashy, cliché-riddled, post-Tarantino gangster movies."</strong> The <a href="http://www.ifccenter.com/event?eventid=999851">IFC screens it at midnight</a> tonight and Saturday night.
<p>Screening at midnight tonight and Saturday <a href="http://www.landmarktheatres.com/Films/films_frameset.asp?id=4976">at the Sunshine</a> is <em>Seven</em>, David Fincher's 1995 hit serial killer movie starring Brad Pitt, Morgan Freeman, Gwyneth Paltrow, R. Ermey, and Kevin Spacey.</p>