Cinema smorgasbord

A day-by-day guide to the second week of the Chicago International Film Festival.

Thursday 11
4pm The Age of Ignorance Dir. Denys Arcand. 2007. 109mins. Canada. A middle-aged government worker has elaborate fantasies à la Walter Mitty. AMC River East.
4pm Bad Habits Dir. Simón Bross. 2007. 103mins. Mexico. In this religion-swathed treatise on the trickle-down effects of anorexia, the (dieting) sins of the mother are revisited on the daughter, and the husband rebels against his wife’s increasingly emaciated figure by acting out his own erotic food fantasies. It’s not as indigestible as you might expect, thanks to Bross’s deft visual sense and the Georges Delerue–lite score. AMC River East.—Ben Kenigsberg
4pm Lucky Miles Dir. Michael James Rowland. 2007. 105mins. Australia. Two refugees stranded in the Australian desert form an improbable friendship. Landmark’s Century Centre.
✽ 4:15pm The Man from London Dir. Béla Tarr. 2007. 135mins. France/Germany/Hungary. Tarr’s moody long takes increasingly verge on mannerism, and it’s unclear how he feels about his source material, a Georges Simenon novel about a man who acquires a briefcase full of blood money. But the opening first-person sequence is stunning, as is the way Tarr sometimes recontextualizes scenes, pivoting his camera to reveal eavesdroppers. Landmark’s Century Centre.—BK
4:15pm My Friend & His Wife Dir. Shin Dong-il. 2007. 110mins. South Korea. A woman, her husband and the husband’s best friend deal with a tragedy. AMC River East.
✽ 4:30pm You, the Living Dir. Roy Andersson. 2007. 94mins. Sweden. An old man walking his dog. A honeymoon night on a moving building. A tuba player practicing in his kitchen. These scenes take on iconic and hilarious significance in the latest masterpiece from Andersson (Songs from the Second Floor). Those averse to slow-developing black comedy should avoid this. Everyone else should line up. Landmark’s Century Centre.—J. Robert Parks
4:45pm Cowboy Angels Dir. Kim Massee. 2007. 100mins. France. A boy sets out to find his long-lost father. He gets help from a drifter. Landmark’s Century Centre.
6:30pm I Served the King of England Dir. Jiri Menzel. 2007. 120mins. Czech Republic/Slovakia. Sumptuous production design and a tongue-in-cheek screenplay can’t make up for coy lead Ivan Barnev as a not-so-innocent waiter scaling society during World War II. AMC River East.—Andrea Gronvall
6:30pm The Walker Dir. Paul Schrader. 2007. 108mins. USA/U.K. Woody Harrelson stars in a drama about intrigues among Washington, D.C.’s movers and shakers. AMC River East.
6:45pm Hard-Hearted Dir. Aleksei Mizgiryov. 2007. 82mins. Russia. A young man fresh out of the army goes to Moscow seeking the girl he thinks liked him in high school. That’s a pipe dream, but he finds a place for himself in the corrupt police force. It’s like Taxi Driver without the poetry. Landmark’s Century Centre.—Hank Sartin
✽ 6:45pm Jellyfish Dirs. Etgar Keret and Shira Geffen. 2007. 78mins. France/Israel. This quirky Israeli dramedy shuttles among several stories with a heavy emphasis on visual symbols and metaphors. Both funny and sad (often at the same time), the film’s rich screenplay explores the relationships between parent and child, husband and wife. AMC River East.—JRP
7pm Savior’s Square Dirs. Krzysztof Krauze and Joanna Kos-Krause. 2007. 105mins. Poland. The film begins as an interesting portrait of a Polish family struggling to make ends meet. But none of the characters are compelling or emotionally attractive, which proves disastrous when the story takes a manipulative turn and we no longer care. Landmark’s Century Centre.—JRP
7pm Things We Lost in the Fire Dir. Susanne Bier. 2007. 113mins. USA/U.K. A grieving widow and a guy whose life is coming apart try to rebuild their lives. AMC River East.
7:15pm Shotgun Stories Dir. Jeff Nichols. 2007. 92mins. USA. At the funeral of a bigamist, the children of his two wives hate each other. Things go bad. Landmark’s Century Centre.
✽ 9pm Lars and the Real Girl Dir. Craig Gillespie. 2007. 106mins. USA. Ryan Gosling stars in this quirky, beguiling comedy as an introvert whose new sweetheart is a blow-up doll. Patricia Clarkson adds depth as the psychologist who talks his churchgoing community into supporting his delusion. AMC River East.—AG
9:15pm Iska’s Journey Dir. Bollók Csaba. 2007. 92mins. Hungary. The harrowing theme of sex trafficking raises its head, but this is much more a straightforward character study of a Hungarian teenager living on the streets yet remaining optimistic until the bitter end. The story line does have a certain power, despite the sense of inevitability that infuses it. Landmark’s Century Centre.—JRP
9:15pm Shorts 3: In Between Days Various dirs. and years. 102mins. It’s a grab bag of short films from around the world. Landmark’s Century Centre.
9:15pm Stuck Dir. Stuart Gordon. 2007. 94mins. Canada/USA/U.K. A nursing-home aide (Mena Suvari) plows into a homeless man (Stephen Rea), drives home, parks in her garage and leaves him stuck in her windshield. Unfortunately, this forehead-slapper of a true story is played as broadly as possible, with across-the-board campy performances and a facile wish-fulfillment finale. Stuck marks a CIFF first for Chicago icon Gordon. Landmark’s Century Centre.—BK
✽ 9:30pm Opium: Diary of a Madwoman Dir. Janos Szasz. 2007. 108mins. Hungary. In this uncompromising period drama based on the writings of morphine-addicted psychoanalyst Geza Csath, top European leading man Ulrich Thomsen plays a shrink challenged by a seductive asylum inmate. AMC River East.—AG
9:45pm Eye in the Sky Dir. Yau Nai-Hoi. 2007. 90mins. Hong Kong. Yau’s serpentine heist caper shows collaborator Johnnie To’s influence. Simon Yam plays a veteran detective mentoring rookie Kate Tsui as they stalk murderous jewel thief Tony Leung, aided by omnipresent security cameras. Landmark’s Century Centre.—AG
9:45pm In Memory of Myself Dir. Saverio Costanzo. 2007. 118mins. Italy. In this monastery-set mystery, a novice finds out not all is well down the shadowy hallways and behind the silent gazes. The film is much more interested in dark nights of the soul than forensics, though. It’s a story low on excitement or passion, but the conversations about faith are intriguing. AMC River East.—JRP
9:45pm Suddenly Dir. Johan Brisinger. 2007. 96mins. Sweden. A father and son, grieving after a car accident drastically reduces the number of people in their family, take a trip together. Landmark’s Century Centre.

Friday 12
4pm Poor Boy’s Game Dir. Clement Virgo. 2007. 104mins. Canada. Racially divided Halifax is the setting for this satisfactorily gritty but not great drama about a white-trash ex-con who returns to face the father of the boy he beat to a pulp, and the boxer who wants to return the favor. Landmark’s Century Centre.—AG
✽ 4pm Silent Light Dir. Carlos Reygadas. 2007. 127mins. Mexico/France/Netherlands/Germany. “I was so bored I started hallucinating,” a colleague complained, and he has a point. Either you warm to the idea of an elaborate Dreyer homage set in a Mexican Mennonite community, or you don’t. But for those hypnotized by the opening sunrise, the film offers something unprecedented for Reygadas: a genuinely tender and sad romance. AMC River East.—BK
4:15pm Eye in the Sky See Thu 9:45pm. Landmark’s Century Centre.
4:15pm Jump! Dir. Helen Hood Scheer. 2007. 90mins. USA. Synchronized swimming is a sport, so why not jumping rope? Dance, gymnastics and speed all factor into jumprope competition, now reaching international levels. But this sanitized documentary is short on context, big on product placement. Skip it. AMC River East.—AG
4:15pm Shorts 4: Love and Loss Various dirs. and years. 103mins. This is a program of short films about—you guessed it—love and loss. Landmark’s Century Centre.
4:30pm OSS 117: Cairo, Nest of Spies Dir. Michael Hazanavicius. 2007. 99mins. France. A French spy searching for a missing agent in Egypt finds all kinds of trouble in this film, which revives a character beloved in France. Landmark’s Century Centre.
4:30pm Tuya’s Marriage Dir. Wang Quanan. 2006. 86mins. China. A woman looks for someone to help support her crippled husband and her kids. AMC River East.
6:30pm The Age of Ignorance See Thu 4pm. AMC River East.
✽ 6:30pm The Man From London See Thu 4:15pm. Landmark’s Century Centre.
6:45pm Blackout Dir. Jerry LaMothe. 2007. 95mins. USA. People deal with personal issues and the breakdown of society during a blackout. AMC River East.
6:45pm Home of the Giants Dir. Rusty Gorman. 2007. 102mins. USA. A high-school basketball player with real talent gets tangled up in a robbery. Landmark’s Century Centre.
✽ 7pm Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead Dir. Sidney Lumet. 2007. 123mins. USA. Two brothers (Philip Seymour Hoffman and Ethan Hawke) rob their parents’ jewelry store, which (surprise!) turns out to be not such a great idea. The concept and the chronological jumbling are shamelessly derivative, but Lumet and his cast are in fine form—striving to elevate the material to the level of Greek tragedy. Landmark’s Century Centre.—BK
7pm The Diving Bell and the Butterfly Dir. Julian Schnabel. 2007. 112mins. France/USA. As Schnabel films it, in 1995 Elle editor Jean-Dominique Bauby awakes from a stroke to find his entire field of vision resembles Before Night Falls. On one hand, it’s impossible not to be moved by Bauby’s resilience, crafting a memoir using only his left eye. But Schnabel puts a ludicrously romanticized gloss on rehab, replete with aides who seem cast from Bauby’s magazine. AMC River East.—BK
7pm Grace Is Gone Dir. James C. Strouse. 2007. 90mins. USA. John Cusack stars as a man whose wife dies in Iraq. He has to figure out how to tell his two young daughters. Music Box.
9pm Irina Palm Dir. Sam Garbarski. 2007. 103mins. Belgium/Germany/Luxembourg/U.K./France. Marianne Faithfull plays a fiftyish woman who becomes a sex worker to raise money for her grandson’s operation. Landmark’s Century Centre.
9pm My Friend & His Wife See Thu 4:15pm. AMC River East.
9:15pm All About Us Dir. Christine Swanson. 2007. 92mins. USA. Two filmmakers go to Mississippi to try to convince Morgan Freeman to star in their film. AMC River East.
9:15pm All the Invisible Things Dir. Jakob M. Erwa. 2007. 90mins. Austria. In one long night, out-of-control teens terrorize a town, and their families and neighbors deal with the consequences. Landmark’s Century Centre.
9:30pm Heartbeat Detector Dir. Nicolas Klotz. 2007. 141mins. France. A psychologist goes undercover as an office worker to determine whether a powerful executive is mentally unhinged. AMC River East.
9:45pm Meteoro Dir. Diego de la Texera. 2007. 117mins. Brazil. A group of government construction workers left stranded by a military coup form their own community. There’s trouble when the new government comes calling. Landmark’s Century Centre.
10pm The Matsugane Potshot Affair Dir. Nobuhiro Yamashita. 2006. 112mins. Japan. A cop and his twin brother get entangled in small-town intrigue when one of them is involved in a hit-and-run accident. Landmark’s Century Centre.
10pm Stuck See Thu 9:15pm. Music Box.

Saturday 13
Noon August Rush Dir. Kirsten Sheridan. 2007. 100mins. USA. This bizarre film follows a musically gifted boy from an orphanage to New York City in a quest to find his parents, who are also headed to the city for reasons of their own. It’s meant to be magical, but it’s just freakin’ weird. Landmark’s Century Centre.—HS
Noon Iska’s Journey See Thu 9:15pm. AMC River East.
Noon Jump! See Fri 4:15pm. AMC River East.
Noon Shorts 1: Homegrown Various dirs. and years. 98mins. Local talent gets the spotlight in a program of shorts. AMC River East.
12:15pm Faro: Goddess of the Waters Dir. Salif Traoré. 2007. 96mins. Mali/France/Canada/Burkina Faso/Germany. A man returns to his native village in Mali with all sorts of modern ideas, but when a woman drowns, the locals decide to blame the interloper for angering the gods. Landmark’s Century Centre.
12:15pm Pudor Dirs. David Ulloa and Tristán Ulloa. 2007. 113mins. Spain. A family who has trouble communicating deals with death, infidelity, ghosts and self-image problems. You know, the usual family stuff. AMC River East.
12:45pm Two Embraces Dir. Enrique Begne. 2007. 87mins. Mexico. The drama interweaves two stories: one about an adolescent with a crush on a supermarket cashier, the other concerning a taxi driver who faces mortality when a passenger dies. Landmark’s Century Centre.
2:15pm Blackout See Fri 6:45pm. AMC River East.
✽ 2:30pm Becky Sharp Dir. Rouben Mamoulian. 1935. 84mins. USA. Thackeray’s novel Vanity Fair provides the plot for the first feature shot using the three-strip Technicolor process. It’s a lush example of 1930s Hollywood literary adaptation, alternately charming and stagy. Landmark’s Century Centre.
2:30pm The Girl Who Leapt Through Time Dir. Mamoru Hosoda. 2006. 98mins. Japan/USA. In this animated comedy, a tomboy discovers she can travel through time. AMC River East.
2:30pm In Memory of Myself See Thu 9:45pm. Landmark’s Century Centre.
2:45pm Getting Home Dir. Zhang Yang. 2007. 96mins. China. In this sweet and funny cross between a buddy flick and a road movie, an average joe keeps his promise to his late coworker by carting his body home to the Three Gorges. AMC River East.—AG
3pm The Matsugane Potshot Affair See Fri 10pm. Landmark’s Century Centre.
3:30pm The Witnesses Dir. André Téchiné. 2007. 112mins. France. A gay man and parents of a newborn make friends in 1980s Paris. Landmark’s Century Centre.
4:15pm One Hundred Nails Dir. Ermanno Olmi. 2007. 90mins. Italy. The famed director tackles the story of Christ, but this Christ is a suave philosophy professor. Landmark’s Century Centre.
4:45pm America the Beautiful Dir. Darryl Roberts. 2007. 105mins. USA. Just how obsessed are Americans with physical beauty? Roberts sets out to answer the question as if three generations of feminist scholarship on the topic didn’t exist. He gets some great interviews (with fashion models, magazine editors, etc.) but his insights aren’t deep or fresh. AMC River East.—HS
✽ 5pm Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead See Fri 7pm. AMC River East.
5pm The Duchess of Langeais Dir. Jacques Rivette. 2007. 137mins. France/Italy. Rivette’s third riff on Balzac (after Out 1 and La Belle Noiseuse) is in every respect his most straightforward. The film’s calculated verbal parries—between a Napoleonic war hero (Guillaume Depardieu) and his would-be mistress (Jeanne Balibar)—almost seem like foreign territory for this famously loose-limbed, happenstance-embracing director. The result is accomplished, if uncharacteristic. Landmark’s Century Centre.—BK
5:30pm Bad Habits See Thu 4pm. AMC River East.
5:30pm Shorts 2: Animation Nations Various dirs. and years. 87mins. It’s a grab bag of short films from around the world. Landmark’s Century Centre.
5:45pm Lars and the Real Girl See Thu 9pm. Landmark’s Century Centre.
6:45pm Under the Same Moon Dir. Patricia Riggen. 2007. 109mins. Mexico/USA. A Mexican boy and his mother, who’s working in the U.S., set out on parallel journeys to reunite. Landmark’s Century Centre.
7:30pm My Brother Is an Only Child Dir. Daniele Luchetti. 2007. 100mins. France/Italy. Two Italian brothers in the 1960s find their politics diverging as one goes all commie and the other is drawn toward fascism. AMC River East.
7:30pm Operation Filmmaker Dir. Nina Davenport. 2007. 94mins. USA. In this doc, an Iraqi film student uses all his charm to get an internship in Hollywood. AMC River East.
✽ 7:45pm Flight of the Red Balloon Dir. Hou Hsiao-hsien. 2007. 113mins. France. In the spirit of his 2003 Tokyo story Café Lumière, the master Taiwanese director makes a film in Paris (with Juliette Binoche). Albert Lamorisse’s red balloon appears, essentially as a red herring. As is typical of Hou, most of the action takes place indoors, and the key themes—exquisitely understated—are family, communication and the bridges between cultures. Landmark’s Century Centre.—BK
8pm Nomads TX Dir. Raul de la Fuente. 2007. 94mins. Spain. Two musicians wander and bond with a variety of people by using music as their cultural calling card. Landmark’s Century Centre.
8:15pm Meteoro See Fri 9:45pm. Landmark’s Century Centre.
8:15pm Wolfsbergen Dir. Nanouk Leopold. 2007. 93mins. Netherlands/Belgium. The family conflicts in this Dutch drama stretch across four generations, and range from suicide to adultery to plastic surgery. Though the film never fully satisfies, the characters are drawn well enough that you start to imagine how these people became the way they are. AMC River East.—JRP
9:15pm Beaufort Dir. Joseph Cedar. 2007. 125mins. Israel. This fairly good film about Israeli soldiers keeping watch at a Lebanese post captures long periods of passing time as well as brief moments of chaos. It highlights the ever-present fear of danger and the camaraderie it engenders. Landmark’s Century Centre.—JRP
9:45pm Noise Dir. Matthew Saville. 2007. 108mins. Australia. It’s odd to think of sound designers as having a distinctive style, but this Melbourne police procedural suggests imitation Leslie Shatz (Last Days, Day Night Day Night), whipping up a striking ambient soundtrack but allowing the pace to flag. The main character is a detective with tinnitus, providing a somewhat on-the-nose justification for the film’s aural fixation. AMC River East.—BK
10pm Black Butterfly Dir. Francisco J. Lombardi. 2006. 122mins. Peru/Spain. Rarely has any film turned a holy virgin so quickly into a scheming whore. Ostensibly about the oppressive Fujimori regime in ’90s Peru, it’s much more a lurid melodrama, complete with old lesbians and high-class hookers, though those interested in cheap exploitation will be disappointed. Landmark’s Century Centre.—JRP
10:15pm Great World of Sound Dir. Craig Zobel. 2007. 106mins. USA. Two aspiring record producers go on the road in search of talent. Landmark’s Century Centre.
10:15pm In Search of a Midnight Kiss Dir. Alex Holdridge. 2007. 90mins. USA. As New Year’s Eve approaches, a guy tries to hook up with a woman. Comical mishaps ensue. AMC River East.
10:30pm Weirdsville Dir. Allan Moyle. 2007. 90mins. Canada/USA. The title is a pun on the nonexistent suburb of Weedsville, Ontario, where two slacker buddies (Wes Bentley and Scott Speedman) spend an evening rescuing their OD’d friend (Taryn Manning) and outrunning nerdy Satan worshippers. Less weird than wacky, the film exhibits far too little control to qualify as Superbad: Canada Edition. AMC River East.—BK
11pm The Signal Dirs. David Bruckner, Dan Bush and Jacob Gentry. 2007. 100mins. USA. Too long for its underdeveloped premise—citizens go homicidal when a mysterious force takes over the airwaves—this gory horror trilogy works best in Gentry’s darkly humorous middle tale about obsessive love. Landmark’s Century Centre.—AG

Sunday 14
Noon Home of the Giants See Fri 6:45pm. Landmark’s Century Centre.
Noon Sankara Dir. Prasanna Jayakody. 2006. 87mins. Sri Lanka. A Buddhist monk restores a set of paintings intended to teach abstention from worldly pleasures, but finds himself tempted by a beautiful young woman. AMC River East.
Noon Shorts 2: Animation Nations See Sat 5:30pm. Landmark’s Century Centre.
Noon Trade Routes Dir. Jim Loftus. 2007. 117mins. Bulgaria. During the impending Bulgarian elections, story lines intersect involving a female U.S. intelligence officer, an ambitious politician and his expatriate friend. For a political thriller about espionage, there’s not a lot of action. AMC River East.—Garin Pirnia
12:15pm Andalucia Dir. Alain Gomis. 2007. 91mins. France/Spain. In dreamy, associative logic, Gomis follows an Arab slacker living in Paris who seeks some meaning out of life, or at least better treatment than he gets. It drags at times, but the intense focus is admirable. Landmark’s Century Centre.—HS
12:15pm Intercom 2007 Various dirs. 2007. 120mins. The winners of the International Communication Video & Interactive Media Competition will be shown. AMC River East.
12:30pm Brave Story Dir. Koichi Chigira. 2007. 112mins. Japan. In this animated film, a boy discovers a gateway to another world. Landmark’s Century Centre.
12:30pm Screams of the Ants Dir. Mohsen Makhmalbaf. 2006. 85mins. Iran/France. A pair of newlyweds from Iran head to India seeking spiritual enlightenment. Landmark’s Century Centre.
2pm All the Invisible Things See Fri 9:15pm. AMC River East.
2:15pm America the Beautiful See Sat 4:45pm. Landmark’s Century Centre.
2:30pm All About Us See Fri 9:15pm. AMC River East.
2:45pm Her Name Is Sabine Dir. Sandrine Bonnaire. 2007. 85mins. France. In this doc, Bonnaire profiles her adult autistic sister. Landmark’s Century Centre.
3pm Great World of Sound See Sat 10:15pm. Landmark’s Century Centre.
3pm Under the Same Moon See Sat 6:45pm. Landmark’s Century Centre.
3:30pm Irina Palm See Fri 9pm. AMC River East.
4:30pm Poor Boy’s Game See Fri 4pm. AMC River East.
✽ 4:45pm We Are Together Dir. Paul Taylor. 2007. 86mins. U.K. Taylor’s documentary about a choir of South African orphans doesn’t break any new formal or thematic ground. But if you’re not moved by their gorgeous singing and difficult plight, you have a cold heart, indeed. It’s highly worthwhile. Landmark’s Century Centre.—JRP
5pm I’m Through with White Girls (The Inevitable Undoing of Jay Brooks) Dir. Jennifer Sharp. 2007. 89mins. USA. An African-American man who thinks that dating white girls is what has kept him from happiness falls for a “Halfrican-Canadian” woman and begins to wonder if he’s the cause of his own love problems. AMC River East.
5:15pm Two Embraces See Sat 12:45pm. Landmark’s Century Centre.
✽ 5:30pm Jellyfish See Thu 6:45pm. Landmark’s Century Centre.
5:45pm Getting Home See Sat 2:45pm. AMC River East.
✽ 6pm The Last Mistress Dir. Catherine Breillat. 2007. 114mins. France/Italy. From the opening shot of Michael Lonsdale scarfing chicken, Breillat brings a welcome infusion of vulgarity to the French costume drama. Toward that end, she’s found an ideal star in Asia Argento, who writhes and moans entertainingly in her role as the kind of seductress who insists on sucking her lover’s bullet wound. Landmark’s Century Centre.—BK
7pm The Duchess of Langeais See Sat 5pm. AMC River East.
7pm Slipstream Dir. Anthony Hopkins. 2007. 110mins. USA. An aging screenwriter flips back and forth between the real world and his fantasies. Music Box.
7:15pm Taxi to the Dark Side Dir. Alex Gibney. 2007. 106mins. U.K. An Afghan cab driver is wrongly accused of terrorism, then turns up dead. This doc examines the case, which exposed the Bush administration’s policies on torture. Landmark’s Century Centre.
7:30pm Cowboy Angels See Thu 4:45pm. Landmark’s Century Centre.
7:30pm My Brother’s Wedding Dir. Charles Burnett. 1983. 87mins. USA. A man must choose between his family and his friends in this drama by the director of Killer of Sheep. AMC River East.
7:45pm Billo, The Great Dakhaar Dir. Laura Muscardin. 2007. 90mins. Italy. A young man goes from Islamic student in Senegal to fashion designer in Rome. Landmark’s Century Centre.
8:30pm Shotgun Stories See Thu 7:15pm. Landmark’s Century Centre.
✽ 8:45pm The Man from London See Thu 4:15pm. AMC River East.
9:30pm Nomads TX See Sat 8pm. Landmark’s Century Centre.
9:30pm Operation Filmmaker See Sat 7:30pm. AMC River East.
9:45pm Wolfsbergen See Sat 8:15pm. AMC River East.
10pm One Hundred Nails See Sat 4:15pm. Landmark’s Century Centre.
10pm OSS 117: Cairo, Nest of Spies See Fri 4:30pm. Music Box.

Monday 15
4pm Billo, The Great Dakhaar See Sun 7:45pm. Landmark’s Century Centre.
4pm Shorts 4: Love and Loss See Fri 4:15pm. AMC River East.
4:15pm Taxi to the Dark Side See Sun 7:15pm. Landmark’s Century Centre.
4:30pm Satanás Dir. Andrés Baiz. 2007. 95mins. Colombia/Mexico. Three stories, all occurring on the eve of a famous massacre in Bogotá, are woven together in this drama. Landmark’s Century Centre.
4:30pm Terra Incognita Dir. Maria Finitzo. 2007. 90mins. USA. In this doc, a physician devotes himself to spinal-cord injury research after his daughter has a skiing accident. AMC River East.
4:45pm Faro: Goddess of the Waters See Sat 12:15pm. Landmark’s Century Centre.
5pm Ploy Dir. Pen-Ek Ratanaruang. 2007. 107mins. Thailand. How would you feel if your loving husband brought a cute teen girl he met in a café up to your hotel room? Disgusted? Threatened? Excited? Though the three leads are compelling, this portrait of a marriage sometimes loses its way. AMC River East.—JRP
✽ 6:15pm We Are Together See Sun 4:45pm. AMC River East.
6:30pm In Search of a Midnight Kiss See Sat 10:15pm. Landmark’s Century Centre.
6:30pm Poor Boy’s Game See Fri 4pm. Landmark’s Century Centre.
6:45pm Andalucia See Sun 12:15pm. Landmark’s Century Centre.
7pm Black Butterfly See Sat 10pm. Landmark’s Century Centre.
7pm Honeydripper Dir. John Sayles. 2007. 123mins. USA. The owner of an Alabama bar hopes a famous musician can give the place a needed boost in business. Music Box.
7:15pm Hard-Hearted See Thu 6:45pm. AMC River East.
9pm Beaufort See Sat 9:15pm. AMC River East.
9:15pm Cowboy Angels See Thu 4:45pm. Landmark’s Century Centre.
9:15pm I’m Through with White Girls (The Inevitable Undoing of Jay Brooks) See Sun 5pm. AMC River East.
9:30pm The Age of Ignorance See Thu 4pm. Landmark’s Century Centre.
9:30pm Shorts 3: In Between Days See Thu 9:15pm. Landmark’s Century Centre.
9:45pm Men in the Nude Dir. Károly Esztergályos. 2007. 94mins. Hungary. A middle-aged married guy finds himself sexually and emotionally reinvigorated by a young male hustler. Landmark’s Century Centre.
9:45pm Trade Routes See Sun noon. AMC River East.
10pm All the Invisible Things See Fri 9:15pm. Music Box.

Tuesday 16
4pm Shorts 1: Homegrown See Sat noon. Landmark’s Century Centre.
✽ 4:15pm Opium: Diary of a Madwoman See Thu 9:30pm. Landmark’s Century Centre.
4:30pm The Banishment Dir. Andrei Zvyagintsev. 2007. 2hrs 30mins. Russia. Zvyagintsev (The Return) wears his Tarkovsky influences on his sleeve, but his incredible widescreen compositions, use of natural light, and elemental themes of nature and fidelity mark him as a worthy heir. Some may find the languid narrative and Christian symbolism a bit much, but it’s absolutely assured filmmaking. AMC River East.—JRP
4:30pm Black Butterfly See Sat 10pm. Landmark’s Century Centre.
✽ 4:45pm Silent Light See Fri 4pm. AMC River East.
5pm I Served the King of England See Thu 6:30pm. Landmark’s Century Centre.
5:15pm All About Us See Fri 9:15pm. AMC River East.
6:30pm Shorts 3: In Between Days See Thu 9:15pm. Landmark’s Century Centre.
7pm Faro: Goddess of the Waters See Sat 12:15pm. Landmark’s Century Centre.
7:15pm Terra Incognita See Mon 4:30pm. AMC River East.
7:30pm Beaufort See Sat 9:15pm. AMC River East.
7:30pm Men in the Nude See Mon 9:45pm. Landmark’s Century Centre.
7:30pm One Hundred Nails See Sat 4:15pm. AMC River East.
9pm OSS 117: Cairo, Nest of Spies See Fri 4:30pm. Landmark’s Century Centre.
9pm Satanás See Mon 4:30pm. Landmark’s Century Centre.
9pm Screams of the Ants See Sun 12:30pm. Landmark’s Century Centre.
9:15pm Surveillance Dir. Paul Oremland. 2007. 86mins. U.K. A guy finds himself in a world of trouble when his one-night stand turns up dead. The whole film is captured on those omnipresent surveillance cameras that blanket London. AMC River East.
9:30pm Home of the Giants See Fri 6:45pm. AMC River East.
9:30pm Weirdsville See Sat 10:30pm. Landmark’s Century Centre.
9:45pm Two Embraces See Sat 12:45pm. AMC River East.

Wednesday 17
7pm The Savages Dir. Tamara Jenkins. 2007. 113mins. USA. Jenkins (The Slums of Beverly Hills) makes several big missteps in this mostly effective story of two siblings in their late 30s dealing with their senile father. Jenkins’s fondness for bits of glib comedy get in the way of the solid performances. Harris Theater.—HS

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