Last year the French thriller, TELL NO ONE, ranked as one of the best films of the year. For this week’s lineup, This Weekend’s Film Festival takes the opportunity to look at a collection of superior French thrillers, a genre that French filmmakers have excelled in. Crime… murder… mystery… they all play a role in these films, but what is crucial to all of them is their characters drive the plot not the other way around like so many American thrillers. For fans of edge of your seat chills, I have a treat in store for you.
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Check Out the Trailer

When Aristomenis Tsirbas’ 3-D CG feature won the grand prize for features at the Ottawa International Animation Festival over acclaimed films such as WALTZ WITH BASHIR and SITA SINGS THE BLUES, I was surprised and eagerly awaited a chance to see this indie production. I believe the Canadian crowd in September 2008 connected to the anti-Bush administration themes within the film. For certain, TERRA, as it was known then, has ambitions larger than a typical animated action flick, but does it rise above the trappings of a typical animated action flick? Yes and no.

Taking the premise of H.G. Wells’ WAR OF THE WORLDS and flipping the roles, TERRA tells the story of a peaceful alien species that is about to be annihilated by an invading force of humans. Mala (Evan Rachel Wood, THE WRESTLER) is a young Terrian who likes adventure, but lives with her protective father Roven (Dennis Quaid, FAR FROM HEAVEN). When the humans invade, her father is abducted. To find answers, she saves the life of a crashed pilot named Jim Stanton (Luke Wilson, IDIOCRACY) and his loyal robot assistant Giddy (David Cross, GHOST WORLD). When they venture back to the human ship, Jim is lauded as a hero by General Hemmer (Brian Cox, X-MEN UNITED), whose resemblance to George W. Bush is about as subtle as a hammer. He is a warmonger who uses Jim’s brother Stewart (Chris Evans, FANTASTIC FOUR) as a pawn to force Jim to choose between killing all the Terrians or dooming his own species.
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