Rating: 4 out of 5 starsGenre: Comedy, Drama, Foreign
Run Time: 2 hours, 22 minutes, Not Rated Starring: Tony Servillo, Sabrina Ferilli, Giorgio Pasotti, Carlo Verdone Co-Written and Directed by Paolo Sorrentino (This Must Be the Place, The Family Friend, One Man Up) As stated in the Italian film, La grande bellezza(translated in English to "The Great Beauty", and opening today at the Detroit Film Theater), everything ends with death. Ah, but before death, there is life. In this film, director Paolo Sorrentino's stunning, near-visual masterpiece is full of life, a deep inhale of the beauties that surround us and the wonderful colors of our past.
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Rating: 3 out of 5 starsGenre: Mystery, Thriller, Foreign
Run Time: 1 hour, 45 minutes, Rated R Starring: Fabrice Luchini, Ernst Umhauer, Kristin Scott Thomas, Emmanuelle Seigner Based on the play "The Boy in the Last Row" by Juan Mayorga Written & Directed by Francois Ozon (Swimming Pool, Potiche) As thrillers go, In the House (opening today) isn't all that thrilling. But it does take a mind-bending premise and weaves a pretty compelling story that should keep the audience in its seat - although maybe not on the edge of it - for the duration. Rating: 4 out of 5 starsGenre: Foreign, Drama, Thriller, War
Run Time: 1 hour, 49 minutes, Not Rated Starring: Saskia Rosendahl, Nele Trebs, Andre Frid, Mika Seidel, Ursina Lardi Co-Written & Directed by Cate Shortland (Somersault) Where are the foreign comedies? It seems that every foreign film that makes it to stateside theaters deals with heavily dramatic fare, usually involving powerful, often times depressing, subject matter. But when such a film if beautifully made like Lore (now playing exclusively at the Main Art Theater in Royal Oak), all is forgiven. Rating: 3 out of 5 starsGenre: Drama, Romance, Foreign
Run Time: 2 hours, Rated R Starring: Marion Cotillard, Matthias Schoenaerts, Armand Verdure, Celine Sallette Co-Written and Directed by Jacques Audiard (A Prophet, Read My Lips, See How They Fall) Rust and Bone is a French-Belgian love story based on a short story collection by author Craig Davidson. The lovely Marion Cotillard stars as Stephanie, a killer whale trainer who falls in love with Ali (Matthias Schoenaerts). Ali has a young son, Sam (Armand Verdure) in his keep and they move in with Ali's sister while Ali tries to find work. Rating: 4 out of 5 starsGenre: Drama, Foreign
Run Time: 1 hour 45 minutes, Rated PG-13 Starring: Emmanuelle Devos, Pascal Elbe, Jules Sitruk, Mehdi Dehbi, Areen Omari, Khalifa Natour Co-Written & Directed by Lorraine Levy (The First Time I Turned Twenty, London mon amour) What would you do if you found out that your teenage child was actually not yours? My parents may be thrilled (joking, mom...), but this very serious and tragic question is the crux of The Other Son. Rating: 4 out of 5 starsGenre: Drama, Foreign
Run Time: 1 hour 27 minutes, Not Rated Starring: Thomas Doret, Cecile De France, Jeremie Renier Written & Directed by Jean-Pierre Dardenne, Luc Dardenne (Lorna’s Silence, The Child, The Son) The simple and innocently titled, The Kid With a Bike, is anything but. It won the Jury Grand Prize at the 2011 Cannes Film Festival and was also nominated for a Golden Globe for Best Foreign Film, and deservedly so. Rating: 4 out of 5 starsGenre: Drama, Foreign
Run Time: 1 hour 49 minutes, Not Rated Starring: Tristan Halilaj, Sindi Lacej Directed by Joshua Marston (Maria Full of Grace) The Forgiveness of Blood drops us directly into a domestic dispute, as two families try to cope with a feud that has torn them apart. Michigan, you may or may not know, hosts one of the largest Albanian-American populations in the US. This film is a modern-day story that takes place overseas, but its relevance echoes throughout our country as an example of how the past can affect the future. Nik and Rudina are high school children living in Albania, and they seem modern and normal. Nik has dreams of opening an internet café one day, and the children are shown uploading silly photos to Facebook and playing Xbox. Their father drives his horse-drawn cart into town each day to deliver bread for profit. He has always taken a short cut through the lands of his neighbor. The neighbor however, doesn’t like that the father is cutting across their ancestral land, and continues to put up a road block, forcing the father to have to drive the long way home, several miles around the block in order to reach his home. 3 out of 5 starsGenre: Drama, Romance, Foreign
Opens locally Friday, December 9th, 2011 Run Time: 1 hour 40 minutes, Not Rated Starring: Alexander Fehling, Miriam Stein, Moritz Bleibtreu Directed by Philipp Stolzl (Richard Wagner, North Face, Baby) The title Young Goethe in Love correctly summarizes this English-subtitled German film opening in limited release today. “Goethe” is referring to Johan Wolfgang von Goethe, a real person and one of the most famous German writers in history, credited as one of the geniuses of modern German literature. His best known works are Faust, and The Sorrows of Young Werther, the latter being credited as one of the world’s first “best-sellers” when it was released in 1774. Rating: 3 out of 5 starsGenre: Thriller/Suspense, Drama, Foreign
Opens locally on Friday, October 28th, 2011 Run Time: 1 hour 46 minutes, Not Rated Starring Ludivine Sagnier, Kristin Scott Thomas, Patrick Mille Directed by Alain Corneau (Fear and Trembling, Some Kind of Blue) There have been many movies featuring a villain who is plotting “the perfect crime,” as is the case in “Love Crime” (Crime d’amour.) This French import features the likes of a well-known actress to American audiences, that of Academy Award-nominated Kristen Scott Thomas (The English Patient.) But like finding a buried treasure, you will also be introduced to Ludivine Sagnier, a talented French actress who gets star treatment here, delivering a very memorable performance as Isabelle, the film’s central character. Rating: 5 out of 5 starsGenre: Foreign, Comedy, Drama
Opens locally Friday, October 14th, 2011 Run Time: 1 hour, 22 minutes, Not Rated Starring: Gerard Depardieu, Gisele Casadesus Co-written and Directed by Jean Becker (Love Me No More, Conversations with My Gardener) In this French film, Gerard Depardieu plays Germain, a lumbering ogre of a man who’s big heart more than makes up for his simple brain. He’s not stupid or dim-witted, but rather uneducated and as we find out, unloved. By chance, he meets the 90-something year-old Margueritte (Casadesus) in the park, and the two become unlikely friends. |
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