The Edge of Heaven

Hanna Schygulla is one of six fine performers in The Edge of Heaven (Strand Releasing)

Hollywood was smart enough to clear the runway for the Batman landing. All mainstream studios served up were strong counterprogramming like Mamma Mia! for women and Space Chimps for kids. But at least those films had enough studio backing to let those demographics know that options to The Dark Knight would be available. But over at the Landmark art houses there's some counter-programming as well but their new openings may just get lost among this weekend. That's too bad because both Tell No One and The Edge of Heaven (opening July 18 at Landmark's Ken Cinema) are worth checking out. The Edge of Heaven is the fifth feature by Fatih Akin, but the first I've had a chance to see. But now I'm eager to seek out the others.

In reading about German-born Turkish writer-director Akin's other films, I can see that he's interested in cross cultural tales, most specifically those involving Turks and Germans. His lastest outing concerns four Turks and a pair of Germans whose lives fatefully intersect. The two driving forces here are love and tragedy, love bringing characters together and tragedy forcing them to connect with others. Dividing his film into three parts, Akin gives us fair warnings of the tragedies by labeling two chapters Yeter's Death and Lotte's Death, with the final chapter bearing a more ambiguous title of From the Other Side.

Although all the performances are top notch, it is great to see Fassbinder favorite Hanna Schygulla (remember her from The Marriage of Maria Braun?) again. Akin keeps his complex tale moving with careful efficiency and rich humanity.

The Edge of Heaven (unrated and in German, Turkish, English with English subtitles) serves up a tale of two divergent cultures and the individuals who reach across those cultural lines to connect.

Companion viewing: The Marriage of Maria Braun, Solino, Head On

Stone Late Night Movie: Harold and Maude

What can you expect from a relationahip that begins at a funeral? The delightful cult classic Harold and Maude. (Paramount)

Well it seems like every week I'm finding new places to see old movies. Just when I was fearing that people were retreating into their home theaters and that the community film going experience was on its way out, places like Stone Brewing Co. prove me wrong. So thanks to Mike Palmer for alerting me to the Stone Late Night Movie showings happening every Wednesday night from now through the end of August - it's classic movies in a beer garden! (Gee, wonder if they'll be showing Strange Brew?!)

The next screening will be the 1971 cult classic Harold and Maude on May 28 at 9pm. You could say this is a life-affirming film about death, and that would at least convey a little of the film's off-kilter style. Rarely, though, has a film been so perfectly cast. Ruth Gordon's zest for life practically leaps off the screen and Bud Cort's baby-faced bewilderment sums up the angst of a generation of rich kids left to their own devices. I never grow weary of watching this film. It also holds a special place in my heart because Bud Cort was the first person I ever interviewed professionally, and I couldn't have picked a better celebrity. I was in my early twenties and struggling with recording equipment that was atrocious. So Mr. Cort waited patiently while I set up and then offered to just sit in silence for a few minutes if that would help me relax. He was so gracious and accomodating that it made the whole experience pleasant. So that combined with the fact that Harold and Maude is a delicious black comedy, make it one of my all-time favorite films. So grab a sunflower and head over to the Stone Late Night Movie.

Palmer, who is listed as the art director describes the experience as: "Stars up above you, the frogs and crickets singing away behind you, a classic movie in front of you, and in your hand, your favorite beer. Sounds magical, doesn't it? Indeed it is."

Stone Brewing Company's screening venue.

Each week movies are projected onto a twelve foot wide screen located in a lush, secluded, boulder-lined one-acre garden. Guests are invited to bring lawn chairs and blankets, as they settle in for a night of food, beer and movie watching. No tickets are necessary, and persons under 21 will not be admitted. The Stone World Bistro & Gardens is located at 1999 Citracado Parkway in Escondido For more information visit http://www.stonebrew.com/movies

There will also be a trivia contest with prizes. So brush up on your Harold and Maude trivia. Do you remember what Old Globe Theater actor plays a priest? Or how many times Harold commits suicide?

Paranoid Park

Gus Van Sant's Paranoid Park (IFC Films)

Gus Van Sant has ceased making narrative movies. Instead he now creates cinematic tone poems in which there is only a thread of a narrative. This will prove frustrating to those wishing to see a movie with a clearly defined beginning, middle and an end (not an unreasonable expectation) but it may prove refreshing to those who enjoy something more experimental. Van Sant's latest film, Paranoid Park (opening March 21 at Landmark's Ken Cinema), concerns a young skater in Portland. The film's adapted from Blake Nelson's novel of the same name.

Into the Wild on DVD

Emile Hirsch as Christopher McCandless in Into the Wild (Paramount Vantage)

Paramount Vantage delayed the DVD release of Into the Wild from February 12 to March I1 probably in the hopes of being able to add a sticker saying "with Oscar-winner Hal Holbrook." But old Hollywood vets just aren't winning votes any more, and Into the Wild failed to nab gold in either of its Oscar bids. So in hindsight, a DVD release before the awards might have generated more interest than having the DVD arrive after the film has become an official loser. The film arrived on DVD yesterday and since I missed reviewing Into the Wild when it opened in theaters, I thought I'd catch up with it now.

In January of 1993, author and mountaineer Jon Krakauer wrote an article entitled "Death of an Innocent" for Outsider Magazine. The article was about Christopher Johnson McCandless, a young man from an affluent East Coast family. He graduated with honors from Emory University, gave away his entire savings to charity, hitchhiked to Alaska and walked alone into the wilderness north of Mount McKinley with tragic results. The article generated more mail than any other article in the magazine's history. Some admired McCandless' idealism and independent spirit; others thought him a fool or an arrogant idiot. The article proved to be just the beginning of Krakauer's obsessive quest to discover more about McCandless.

15th Annual San Diego Latino Film Festival

Under the Same Moon kicks off the 15th San Diego Latino Film Festival (Fox Searchlight)

The San Diego Latino Film Festival celebrates its Quinceanera this year, and how wonderfully it has come of age. It has grown up into a stellar event, this year showcasing more than a hundred films with some 120 guests. That's a long way from its humble beginnings as a small student festival. The festival is sponsored by the Media Arts Center San Diego, which, through its Golden Hill home base, also provides facilities to train young people in filmmaking so that they can tell their stories. The festival kicks off tonight with the San Diego premiere of Under the Same Moon/La Misma Luna on its big Macy's screen at the Ultrastar Mission Valley Cinemas at Hazard Center). Directed by Patricia Riggen, the film concerns a young boy who comes to the U.S. from Mexico in order to find his mother after his grandma dies. This film will open theatrically in San Diego after the festival, but many of the other films playing have no U.S. release planned so this will be your only opportunity to catch some of these great movies. You will also have an opportunity to see the works of the Media Art Center's Teen Producers, who are poised to be the filmmakers of tomorrow. Listen to the festival's executive director Ethan Van Thillo and I talk about this year's event with Tom Fudge on These Days.

The Eye

Jessica Alba stars in The Eye, a remake of a Hong Kong horror film (Lionsgate)

The Eye (opened on February 2 throughout San Diego) follows films such as The Ring, The Grudge and Dark Water in turning to Asian horror film successes as inspiration for a Hollywood remake. But unlike those Japanese or J-horror inspired films, The Eye draws on a Hong Kong film directed by the Thai-born Pang Brothers as source material. The story works on a very simple premise: what if you received someone else's eyes in a transplant operation and suddenly began seeing from the organ donor's perspective. Jessica Alba plays a blind violinist who hopes that a cornea transplant will change her life. It does but not in the way she or anyone could have expected. 

The Bucket List

Jack Nicholson examines The Bucket List (Warner Bros.)  The Bucket List (opening January 11 throughout San Diego) brings together two of America's most acclaimed actors -- Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman -- in a comedy-drama directed by Rob Reiner. This is a combo of talent that looks promising on paper but sometimes such celebrity match ups fail to pay off on screen. In the case of The Bucket List, you have two veteran actors and a director with a number of critical and box office hits under his belt, yet a screenwriter who's just a newcomer. Justin Zackham has only had one feature script that's been produced, and that was the college comedy Going Greek. So it's a bit of a mystery why his script for The Bucket List drew such high caliber talent.

Here are the basics of Zackham's script. Take two men -- one a corporate tycoon named Edward Cole (Jack Nicholson), the other a veteran mechanic named Carter Chambers (Morgan Freeman) -- who have nothing in common. Then throw them together in a hospital room where they discover that they both have a terminal illness. The disease serves as an equalizer. It doesn't matter that Cole is rich and white, and Chambers is black and working class. Or that Cole has led a selfish life whereas Chambers has made sacrifices for his family. Being terminally ill means that both men have only a short time remaining on the planet, and nothing can change that.

Time to Leave

Time to Leave (Strand Releasing)

While Hollywood's end of summer action films Crank and The Covenant kill off a multitude of characters, France's Time to Leave (opening September 15 at Landmark's Ken Cinema) takes a quiet moment to consider what it means to face death. Jeanne Moreau co-stars is this latest film from Francois Ozon.

Dark Water

Jennifer Connelly stars in the remake of Dark Water (Buena Vista)

In a summer of remakes, Hollywood once again turns to Asian horror for inspiration. This time it’s Dark Water (opening July 8 throughout San Diego), based on the novel by Koji Suzuki and film by Hideo Nakata.

When Dreamworks remade the Japanese chiller The Ring in 2002, and scored big at the box office, it helped launch a cycle of Asian influenced remakes. The Ring 2 and The Grudge followed. Now comes Dark Water and soon we’ll also have The Eye, and there are about a dozen other Asian properties (not all horror) waiting in the wings for their American adaptation. Roy Lee, a producer who has been involved with The Ring, The Grudge and now Dark Water, is the one who had the bright idea to take the most popular Asian films and remake them in Hollywood. Lee understood that Hollywood would be receptive to this idea because the films were from familiar genres and had proven their popularity in existing markets. As he explained to me in 2002: “By seeing a completed movie, they [Hollywood executives] could see what works and what doesn’t work. Because it could have easily been a writer submitting a script with the same premise but this just happens to work out better. It’s easier to access.”

The Grudge

Sarah Michelle Gellar stars in the remake of The Grudge (Columbia Pictures)

The Grudge (opening October 22 throughout San Diego) is the first American remake of a popular Asian film to actually employ the director of the original film. The Grudge is a remake of the Japanese horror or J-horror film, Ju-On directed by Takashi Shimizu. The title refers to a curse born of a grudge held by someone who dies in the grip of powerful anger. This evil presence gathers in the places frequented by the person in life, and it can be lethal to anyone unfortunate enough to come into contact with it. And each time it claims a new victim, it perpetuates itself even more forcefully.

The remake is produced by American horror-meister Sam Raimi, and the decision was made not to transplant the story to America. The setting would remain in Japan and many of the original people involved would also repeat their duties: Takashi Shimizu would again direct, Taka Ichise would serve as a producer, and Takako Fuji and Yuya Ozeki would repeat their roles as the specters in the film. But American characters—and stars—would be added. So the resulting story now has Sarah Michelle Gellar (of Buffy fame) as Karen, a foreign exchange student volunteering at a care center in Tokyo to earn community service credits at school. She’s sent to check in on an older woman (Grace Zabriskie) whose regular caretaker has disappeared. When Karen arrives at the house, she not only finds the woman but also discovers a small boy who’s been shut up in the closet. The boy is cut and bleeding, and says his name is Toshiro (Yuya Ozeki). After some more strange occurrences, Karen encounters the dark, evil spirit that inhabits the house and the next thing she knows, the woman is dead.