In time for Halloween, horror films seem like the obvious choice for This Weekend’s Film Festival. As I did earlier in the year when I picked the best five live-action family films of the past five years, this lineup will be dedicated to the best horror of the 21st century. And I’m using 2001 as the start date, because it’s actually the real start of the 21st century. There has been a great deal of great horror in the last seven years. However, the five films I have selected are really good examples of the genre. Prepare to be thrilled, but there is some challenging cinema here as well. So let the countdown begin.

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Okay, the original BASIC INSTINCT is a total guilty pleasure. It’s delectable trash. When the sequel was released, it was universally trashed. I wasn’t going to rush out to theaters to see it or even rent it, but I awaited its arrival on cable. I was expecting grand camp, and received some of that, but for the most part this is a lame thriller that twists and turns down obvious or illogical roads.

We begin with crime writer Catherine Tramell (Sharon Stone, CASINO) driving over 100 mph down the streets of London as footballer (soccer player for the Americans) Kevin Franks (footballer Stan Collymore) pleasures her. Her excitement is so great that she drives the car off a bridge and into the river, where drugged up Franks drowns. Detective Roy Washburn (David Thewlis, HARRY POTTER AND THE PRISONER OF AZKABAN) believes she did it on purpose. So he enlists court psychiatrist Michael Glass (David Morrissey, HILARY AND JACKIE) to rule on her mental state. After he meets the sexually provocative Tramell, Glass believes that she is addicted to risk. As things go with Tramell, she tries to seduce everyone around her, working her way into Glass treating her. Then people start turning up dead and Glass is thrust into a murder mystery that involves newspaper reporter Adam Towers (Hugh Dancy, ELLA ENCHANTED), his ex-wife Denise (Indira Varma, KAMA SUTRA), his colleague Milena Gardosh (Charlotte Rampling, SWIMMING POOL) and famed psychoanalyst Jakob Gerst (Heathcote Williams, ORLANDO).

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As the final film supervised by Walt Disney, THE JUNGLE BOOK stands a historical transition for the Mouse House. With star casting and character designs based on those actors, the film stands as the close of the golden age and the beginning of the modern age of Disney animation. For better or for worse, it served as a flagship for the way animated features would be made at the studio for decades to come. Despite its flaws or unwanted precedents, it is hard to deny the charms of the irresistible songs and loveable characters.

Mowgli (Bruce Reitherman, THE MANY ADVENTURES OF WINNIE THE POOH) is a baby abandoned in the jungle and discovered by wise panther Bagheera (Sebastian Cabot, 1960’s THE TIME MACHINE). Adopted by a wolf pack, the boy’s life is put in danger when the stealthy killer tiger Shere Khan (George Sanders, ALL ABOUT EVE) returns to their part of the jungle. Bagheera volunteers to take the boy to a man village. When Mowgli learns where he is going, he isn’t happy. So when he meets slacker bear Baloo (Phil Harris, 1973’s ROBIN HOOD), he wishes to live with the lazy bear on the bare necessities. Along the way, Mowgli will meet a marching unit of elephants led by Colonel Hathi (J. Pat O’Malley, 1971’s WILLARD), be kidnapped by the monkeys of the temple of King Louie (Louis Prima), get hypnotized by boa constrictor Kaa (Sterling Holloway, MEET JOHN DOE), encounter a foursome of mop-top vultures and come face-to-face with the deep-voice orange and black terror.

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This heart-rending account of a couple dealing with Alzheimer’s disease from the point of view of both the afflicted and the helpless observer is an impressive feature-directing debut by actress Sarah Polley. The young filmmaker handles the heavy material with grace, subtly and maturity that is surprising for someone 28 years old. With this film, we not only have one of the best films of 2007, but the dawn of a truly talented filmmaker.

Grant (Gordon Pinsent, THE SHIPPING NEWS) becomes quietly worried when he begins to see the signs that his wife Fiona (Julie Christie, MCCABE AND MRS. MILLER) may be suffering from Alzheimer’s disease. When her condition worsens to the point when she is afraid to leave the house because she is unsure if she can find her way back, she decides to enter an assisted living facility. The policy of the home is that new patients cannot receive guests from the outside for 30 days so they can become accustomed to their new surroundings. Grant doesn’t like this rule, but Fiona can’t bare him staying too long because it is so sad. When Grant returns for his first visit, Fiona doesn’t remember him and has developed a very close relationship with fellow patient Aubrey (Michael Murphy, X-MEN: THE LAST STAND). Intercut with Fiona’s journey to the home are scenes of Grant meeting Aubrey’s wife Marian (Olympia Dukakis, MOONSTRUCK); the two have the same thing in common as Fiona and Aubrey do, only from the other side.

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This Belgium/Netherlands co-production was originally released in 2003. It finally made its way to the U.S. in 2005 as an art house release. What one might find surprising about the film is that it’s not an art house film. This slickly stylized thriller has more in common with Hollywood blockbusters than European dramas. The central plot of “cops after a killer” is fairly standard, but what makes this film special is the beguiling performance from Jan Decleir as a highly skilled assassin who is beginning to show the signs of Alzheimer’s.

We start with detective Eric Vincke (Koen DeBouw, EXIT) involved in a child prostitution sting with his juvenile-acting partner Freddy Verstuyft (Werner DeSmedt). Then Angelo Ledda (Decleir, ANTONIA’S LINE) comes to town. He’s assigned to kill two people and retrieve a lockbox. When Angelo refuses to kill his second target for personal reasons, he becomes the target. As he discovers the details of his mission, he forms his own personal vendetta against his clients, toying with the police that he is cleaning the streets of the crooks they cannot catch. Vincke will get ensnared in a cat and mouse chase with the hired killer and learn that the affair could blow the lid off layers of government corruption.

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Some consider Daniel Johnston a genius. Director/writer Jeff Feuerzeig has created a film about the troubled musician and painter that believes so too. Johnston was a typical artistic teen, who made films, drew in notebooks and wrote songs. When he reached college, he started developing the first signs of manic depression, which would define the rest of his life.

Johnston believed at an early age that he was destined to become famous. In college, he became obsessed with a pretty girl named Laurie Allen. However, she was already dating a mortician student, who she would later marry. Two decades later, Johnston still writes songs about her today. Once his parents believed graduating from college was an impossible task for him, Johnston bounced from relative to relative, where he continued to write music. One day, Johnston ran away and joined the carnival. A bizarre incident would leave him stranded in Austin, where he quickly inserted himself into the local music scene. When MTV came to town, he inserted himself on the air too. He was on the rise, but his mental illness just knocked him down time and time again.

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This review of the extended cut of Robert Rodriguez’s PLANET TERROR, which was released in theaters as GRINDHOUSE along with Quentin Taratino’s DEATH PROOF, will be brief. This is fitting because the extension from the original cut is brief. A short plot summary would be go-go dancer Cherry Darling (played by so-to-be Mrs. Rodriguez, Rose McGowan), along with a host of others, must contend with a chemical weapon, which is turning everyone into zombies. If you liked what you saw in theaters than you’ll like this version as well — for the only addition that I could detect was some extra skin in the sex scene. Does this make the film better? Actually no. In extending the scene, it changes the pacing and ruins one of the film’s best-timed jokes. Anyway, overall, it’s still a phantasmal gross fest that revels in the excesses of the genres it’s paying homage and spoofing at the same time.

For more details on the film, read my original GRINDHOUSE review.

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I happened to see the remake of this film before the original. Often in context a flawed movie will seem much better when compared to a similar, but inferior, production. This is the case when viewing THE FOG of 1980 against the remake. The original has an E.C. Comics, Stephen King, campfire ghost tale vibe. The redux takes all the good elements of the original and abandons them for pseudo-slick scare moments. Cool effects don’t make things naturally better.

The Northern California fishing town of Antonio Bay was founded on the plundered wealth of a rich leper sailor naked Blake. As the town celebrates its centennial, an eerie fog moves into town carrying with it the zombie-like specters of Blake’s vessel the Elizabeth Dane. The ghosts have come looking for the descendants of the six original conspirators against them. Sucked into this otherworldly game of revenge are: Stevie Wayner (Adrienne Barbeau, CREEPSHOW), a DJ who works out of the town’s lighthouse; Nick Castle (Tom Atkins, LETHAL WEAPON), a local fisherman, who picks up pretty, young hitchhiker Elizabeth Solley (Jamie Lee Curtis, PROM NIGHT); Kathy Williams (Janet Leigh, PSYCHO), an aging socialite, who is planning the town’s celebrations; Sandy Fadel (Nancy Loomis, HALLOWEEN), Mrs. Williams’ assistant; drunk Father Robert Malone (Hal Holbrook, WALL STREET); and Dan O’Bannon (Charles Cyphers, THE ONION FIELD), the weather station operator, who has a thing for Stevie.

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Last week saw the release of two good films on DVD. Because the PLANET TERROR centered lineup was a sequel of sorts, I decided to wait till this week to build a lineup around A MIGHTY HEART. But with the passing of Deborah Kerr, I wanted to honor her as well. Then I saw that new editions of BREATHLESS and THE SHINING were being released on DVD this week. So I saw a theme forming. Tragic relationships. Cinema has captured tragic relationships of varying types since its birth. Tragedy has been part of storytelling since the earliest ages. But why do we like tragedy? Why are we drawn to these kinds of stories? The five films of This Weekend’s Film Festival are an eclectic mix, but it’s a lineup that I enjoy, because looking at them from the point of view of tragic relationships, one can see a connection between the films that wouldn’t be noticeable otherwise. This could be the most thought provoking Fest thus far.

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Many of the pieces of this satire work wonderfully. The look and feel is dead on. However, often, the humor is so opaque that at time it’s non-existent. Smart people made this film; people who know history very well. On that level it plays perfectly. However as a comedy it rarely hits the mark.

The conceit is that the film is really a British documentary on the history of the Confederate States of America. It’s an alternative history mockumentary that looks at how American history would have played out if the Confederacy had won the American Civil War. The film even includes fake commercial breaks with less than PC products for sale. After the Civil War, Abraham Lincoln goes on the run and flees to Canada, where he dies of old age. The “documentary” shows clips of old movies where Jefferson Davis figures out how to rebuild the North by giving slave owners a tax break. The CSA becomes a great aggressor colonizing South America. Later Asian immigrants are turned into slaves in the West. In the time leading up to World War II, the CSA president meets with Hitler and discusses the waste of killing the Jews when they could make wonderful slaves. The CSA attacks Japan instead of the other way around. Many of the accomplishments of blacks who would have been U.S. citizens, become Canadian landmarks like rock ‘n roll, jazz and Olympic record breakers. In modern times, there is even a home shopping network for slaves.

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