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The fact that this Romanian masterpiece was overlooked by the Academy just goes to show the need for a new system when it comes to nominating films for best foreign language film. This Cannes-winning film is so powerful that other 2008 film will have a high bar to pass if they want to claim the title as best film of the year. The story is simple with no forced melodrama. It not just a gripping look at the oppressive nature of Soviet-run Romania in the 1980s, but deals with topics that will be debated till the end of time. What makes this film so brilliant is that it simply unblinkingly tells its difficult story and allows the audience to come up with their own conclusions.

Otilia (Anamaria Marinca, YOUTH WITHOUT YOUTH) is helping her college roommate Gabita Dragut (Laura Vasiliu) an illegal abortion. Gabita is extremely naïve and scared about the situation, making Otilia do most of the legwork. With the threat of years of imprisonment for just being caught helping someone get an abortion, Otilia is a friend that anyone would be lucky to have. The situation is so touchy that she even keeps her plans from her boyfriend Adi (Alexandru Potocean, THE DEATH OF MR. LAZARESCU), who gets upset when his girlfriend doesn’t want to come to his mother’s birthday party. But she certainly has other things on her mind, such as meeting with the abortionist Mr. Bebe (Vlad Ivanov), who seems disturbed when Otilia shows up instead of Gabita, which was the plan.

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This charming little ode to friendship put writer/director Wes Anderson on the map. As part of the hip indie wave of the mid-to-late ’90s, BOTTLE ROCKET was an expanded take on a short Anderson did with friends Luke, Owen and Andrew Wilson two years prior. The matter-of-fact approach to the wacky story is the key to the strange charm the film elicits. Events move to predetermined points on a map, making this comedy an unpredictable ride.

We are introduced to Anthony Adams (Luke Wilson, RUSHMORE) as he is pretending to escape from a mental hospital because he doesn’t have the heart to tell his best friend Dignan (Owen Wilson, THE WEDDING CRASHERS) that he’s come all this way to break him out of a voluntary program. Along with their friend Bob Mapplethorpe (Robert Musgrave, S1M0NE), who is continually ridiculed by his jocky brother John (Andrew Wilson, FEVER PITCH), Anthony goes along with Dignan’s wild plan to rob a bookstore, so they can impress Mr. Henry, who poses as a gardening service company owner by day and a master thief by night. After the job goes less than smooth, the guys go on the lamb, staying at a motel where Anthony falls for the Spanish-speaking maid Inez (Lumi Cavazos, LIKE WATER FOR CHOCOLATE).

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Sometimes I’ll watch a film because it represents a trend. The success of the SCARY MOVIE franchise has given us a litany of spoof flicks. The movies spoof such recent films that their shelf life is very limited. This piece of garbage had expired before it was even finished. The screenplay and the excrement that was produced from it will stink up the library of 20th Century Fox for a great deal longer than the poor audience’s memory of it.

Edward (Kal Penn), Peter (Adam Campbell), Lucy (Jayma Mays) and Susan (Faune Chambers, WHITE CHICKS) are orphans brought together for nefarious reasons by candy company owner Willy (Crispin Glover). The foursome escapes from Willy through a wardrobe, arriving in a Narnia-like world where they must defeat the White Bitch (Jennifer Coolidge). Over the course of EPIC MOVIE no big film released in the past 12 months is left untouched, such as SUPERMAN RETURNS, PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN, HARRY POTTER, X-MEN, etc.

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With Sean Penn’s brilliant INTO THE WILD arriving on DVD this Tuesday, This Weekend’s Film Festival will be dedicated to the connection between man and nature. We have an animated film that powerfully calls for a balance between nature and modernity. There’s the best nature documentary I’ve ever seen. A documentary that chronicles a man’s return to nature that reminds us that sometimes we need to leave nature alone sometimes. A Korean film will show us our spiritual connection to nature. And to close, we’ll circle back around and discover that no man is an island.

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