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This isn’t a thriller in the American sense of the term. It certainly has more in common with meticulously paced French thrillers, which were as much character studies as they were genre pieces. Director Anton Corbijn has no intentions of making this film for the ADD crowd accustomed to lightning fast editing and adrenaline-fueled action sequences at regular intervals. He is certainly asking his audience to be patient.

Jack, or Edward, (we’re really not sure which name is true) (George Clooney, SYRIANA) is a master assassin. He’s as cold and remote as the wintery mountain setting the film begins in. He is being hunted by Swede assassins. His handler Pavel (Johan Leysen, BROTHERHOOD OF THE WOLF) says he is slipping and needs to lay low. He doesn’t like the safe house set up for him, so he changes the plans. One might expect this to really piss off his boss, but Jack is the best at engineering weapons to precise specifications and Pavel has a new client.
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Young teens dream of rock ‘n roll stardom. They make it. Drugs and egos fuel their spiral down. Sounds like every music biopic and you’re not going to get much more here. But what you will get is three fine performances that lift up the material to a more compelling level.

As the film proposes, Joan Jett (Kristen Stewart, TWILIGHT) wanted to form an all-girl rock band to prove that the girls can rock as hard as the boys. At a club, she meets Kim Fowley (Michael Shannon, REVOLUTIONARY ROAD), a notorious record producer who trolls the clubs looking for the next it act. He introduces Jett to Sandy West (Stella Maeve, BROOKLYN’S FINEST), a drummer who has the same all-girl rock ‘n roll dream. To Fowley’s great surprise, they can rock. So he gets the idea to put the ultimate jailbait in the lead. He finds Cherie Currie (Dakota Fanning, WAR OF THE WORLDS), a Bowie-obsessed 15-year-old and transforms her from a pussycat into a tigress.
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Red Riding trilogy is the only new release worth seeing this week

With a great deal of TV dominating the new releases for the week, this is a very light week. The Pick of the Week is it. It’s part recommend and part Buzzed About.  You’ll see what I mean.
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This is the first film in a trilogy based on David Peace’s novel, which was produced for the BBC. The first installment of this crime drama series was directed by Julian Jarrold (BRIDESHEAD REVISITED). He brings a somber ominous tone to the material that puts an increasing weight on the shoulders of the viewer as it’s central character gets more and more bogged down in the corruption that surround the case he is investigating.

Eddie Dunford (Andrew Garfield, upcoming SPIDER-MAN reboot) is a young reporter digging into a string of child murders that have gone unsolved. His friend Barry Gannon (Anthony Flanagan, STATE OF PLAY) takes him to meet the mother of one of girls, Paula Garland (Rebecca Hall, VICKY CRISTINA BARCELONA) at first she throws him out for being insensitive, but over time she comes to realize that he might the only person truly dedicated to finding the killer. Barry gets an ominous warning that he’s in danger for his investigation into the murders from the mental ill wife of powerful businessman John Dawson (Sean Bean, LORD OF THE RINGS). When Barry turns up dead, Eddie begins to see the cover-up that surrounds the child murders.
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Catfish - an early fall must-see film

Every season a take a look over the release schedule and compile a list of the films I’m most excited about seeing. As it is for most serious movie fans, the fall is the most exciting time for movie going. This fall is no exception with new films from a host of major and up-and-coming filmmakers. Because the fall is so jam-packed with films I’ve also included an Honorable Mention list and an On the Look Out list, which features titles with no firm dates that could easily sneak into the fall schedule. So lets get going.

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A defining British thriller

This week seems like one dedicated to British films. Some classic thrillers and a cult classic for the U.K. A new version of a classic tale from Britain. We also have a new thriller from Down Under. Additionally, there’s another zombie flick from the master of the zombie flick and a trio of classics from Josef Von Sternberg.
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When the news first broke that Pat Tillman left behind millions of dollars to join the Army, I made assumptions about what kind of person he was. After seeing Amir Bar-Lev’s wonderful documentary, I learned what it makes you and me when you assume. However, I do take consolation in the fact that it seems most people thought about the same thing. But the real problem is that the people who knew otherwise and had the responsibility to tell everyone the real story made another one up.

So who was Pat Tillman? He was a low-key sort of guy who hated talking about himself. He married his high school sweetheart, but only after he and his brother Kevin decided to enlist for three years. As a defensive football player, he loved to hit the opponent as hard as he could. On the other hand, Tillman graduated from Arizona State early and summa cum laude. Following his college football success, he signed with the Arizona Cardinals where he broke team records. While his teammates drove luxury cars to practice, he rode his bike. After 9/11 he did enlist, but never publicly told anyone his reasons.
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The tragic prince comes to Blu-ray.

After some busy weeks of releases, this week is a little more before a monster release week next week. Classic tales on film come to Blu-ray this week, as well as an Emmy nominated TV movie and a 1960s French classic.
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This documentary about California’s Prop 8, which defined marriage in the state as between a man and a woman, has a specific point of view. Director Reed Cowan sets out to paint the Mormon Church as bigots who campaigned to take the rights of gays to marry away after it had been granted by the State Supreme Court. A point of view is fine, but are Mormons or other anti-gay marriage proponents going to read or watch past this point? So in the end, the film is preaching to the choir. But for those in the pews, the song can be moving.

Narrated by Oscar-winning MILK screenwriter Dustin Lance Black, the film begins with a retelling of the events that led up to Prop 8 being passed. It uses the hook of a gay couple who were married on the first legal day in California to set the emotional stage. Then it goes to tell how the Mormon Church organized its followers and other religious organizations to help get the Prop passed. The tone is like a shocked whisper when nothing revealed is all that shocking. It’s based on secretly obtained internal documents from the church and treats them like they are the Pentagon Papers. There is no doubt from the way the details are told that it still hits a raw nerve for the filmmakers.
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Director Marcel Camus takes the Greek tragedy of Orpheus and Eurydice and transplants it to 1960s Rio de Janeiro. Driven by an ever present bossa nova beat this tragic love story takes place during Carnival where the poor and the rich mingle in the streets in celebration. But Death is lurking in every corner.

The innocent Eurydice (Marpessa Dawn, SWEET MOVIE) flees to Rio to escape from a mysterious man (Ademar Da Silva) she believes wants to kill her. She turns heads as she roams the streets trying to find her cousin Serafina (Lea Garcia, ORFEU). She particularly catches the eye of Orfeo (Breno Mello), a poor trolley car conductor who is known throughout the slums for three things   his guitar, samba group and playboy status. The problem with him finding true love with Eurydice is that he’s engaged to the loud Mira (Lourdes de Oliveira).
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