“You name it, we shoot it.”

Films opening in South Africa this weekend…

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (read my review)

Indiana Jones is back in a new globe-trotting adventure, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. Directed by Steven Spielberg and starring Harrison Ford as Indy, leading an all-star cast, missing this film would be a mistake. It really is something special. For fans of the franchise, don’t expect too much, just have a good time.

Directed by: Steven Spielberg
Cast: Harrison Ford, Cate Blanchett, Karen Allen, Shia LaBeouf, Ray Winstone, John Hurt, Jim Broadbent, Igor Jijikine
Running Time: 124 minutes.
Age Restriction: 13 LV

Be Kind Rewind

Must-see director Michel Gondry writes and directs this film that seems to have opened everywhere else in the world but SA. The film tells the comedic tale of video store is in danger of being closed down, where the owner decides to go undercover and investigate the oppostion, to see where he’s going wrong. While he’s away, a regular customer manages to erase all the video tapes in the store. In desperation to cover this misdeed, the customer and the owner’s nephew decide to remake the movies themselves, resulting in spoofs/remakes of famous movies, that I am told are funny in some instances and border on tedius the next. Still, I am in.

Director: Michel Gondry
Cast: Jack Black, Mos Def, Danny Glover, Mia Farrow, Melonie Diaz, Irv Gooch, Chandler Parker, Arjay Smith
Running Time: 99 minutes.
Age Restriction: PG L

The Eye

You won’t believe her eyes.

Sydney Wells (Jessica Alba) is an accomplished, independent, Los Angeles-based concert violinist. She is also blind, and has been so since a childhood tragedy. Sydney undergoes a double corneal transplant – a surgery she has waited her whole life to have – and her sight is restored. After the surgery, neural ophthalmologist Dr. Paul Faulkner (Alessandro Nivola) helps Sydney with the difficult adjustment, and with the support of her older sister, Helen (Parker Posey), Sydney learns to see again. But Sydney’s happiness is short-lived – as unexplainable shadowy and frightening images start to haunt her. Are they a passing aftermath of her surgery, Sydney’s mind adjusting to sight, a product of her imagination, or something horrifyingly real? As Sydney’s family and friends begin to doubt her sanity, Sydney is soon convinced that her anonymous eye donor has somehow opened the door to a terrifying world only she can now see. Weirdly….I am interested….but I have no time, sorry Jess.

Director: David Moreau and Xavier Palud
Cast: Jessica Alba, Alessandro Nivola, Parker Posey, Rade Serbedzija, Fernanda Romero, Rachel Ticotin
Running Time: 95 minutes.
Age Restriction: 16 V

Jannat: In Search of Heaven

Jannat is the story of a man caught in a quagmire of crime and consumerism as he struggles to find Heaven on Earth. Arjun is a reckless young man with an obsession with making money at cardgames. After a chance meeting in a mall, a girl named Zoya gives him the reasons he was looking for to move out of his ordinary life. He steps up from playing small-time cardgames to becoming a bookie. Stuck in a triangle between the woman he loves and his addiction to the Quick Buck, Arjun moves on from being a bookie to a runner for the mafia. He steps into a world of match fixing, switching on the limelight to bigger, better, faster, more, until his dizzying rise attracts the attention of the police. Arjun now has to choose between the love of his life and his new-found success and power. How far will the horizon of reality stretch as Arjun and Zoya tread a fine, blurring line between right and wrong to find the heaven for which they’ve been looking? Why don’t you tell me…

Director: Kunal Deshmukh
Cast: Emraan Hashmi, Smair Kochhar, Sonal chauhan, Vishal Malhotra, Javed Sheikh
Running Time: 143 minutes
Age Restriction: 10 M

Book for the above mentioned films: Nu Metro or Ster Kinekor

Previews:

Paris Je’Taime with Barry Ronge, in participation with Nu Metro

In Paris, je t’aime, celebrated directors from around the world come together to portray Paris in a way never before imagined – a portrait of the city is as diverse as its creators’ backgrounds and nationalities. With each director telling the story of an unusual encounter in one of the city’s neighborhoods, the vignettes go beyond the ‘postcard’ view of Paris to portray aspects of the city rarely seen on the big screen.

Racial tensions stand next to paranoid visions of the city seen from the perspective of an American tourist. A young foreign worker moves from her own domestic situation in to her empoyer’s bourgeois environs. An American starlet finds escape as she is shooting a movie. A man is torn between his wife and his lover. A young man working in a print shop sees and desires another young man. A father grapples with his complex raltionship with his daughter. A couple tries to add spice to their sex life. These are but a few of the witty and serendipitous narratives that make up Paris, je t’aime.

An outstanding host of actors grace these vignettes with their larger-than-life personas. Their performances add even deeper resonance to this affectionate love letter to one of the world’s most transcendendent cities.

I wish I could attend, but I cannot – I will have to wait until the film opens on the 30th of May.

Book Now: Nu Metro

Africa on Screen Film Festival (to read more about it)

Some really fantastic films are screening at the festival this year, including Darrell Roodt’s “Zimbabwe” which premiered in Cannes last week. The festival runs from the 23rd of May to the 29th – and is a must for anyone interested in African cinema or a taste of something different. I’ll be there.

Book Now: Ster Kinekor 

~ Enjoy your weekend ~