The Rocker

Rainn Wilson's Fish -- Reliving the dream in The Rocker (Fox Atomic)

Expectation can have a lot to do with whether or not you like a film. I had low expectations for The Rocker (opening August 20 throughout San Diego) based on trailers that made it look entirely stupid. So I was surprised to find that the film is actually only partly stupid, or to paraphrase Robert Downey, Jr.'s line from Tropic Thunder, they didn't go "full" stupid - just halfway. The other surprise is that Peter Cattaneo, the man who created the sweetly charming Brit-com The Full Monty, directed the film. But the main draw for The Rocker will probably be to see Rainn Wilson stepping out of his Dwight character from the American TV show The Office to take on the role of an aging rocker getting his second chance at fame.

George A. Romero’s Diary of the Dead

The dead are coming back to life... again. Diary of the Dead (The Weinstein Company)

Let me be upfront about this – I love zombie movies. I don’t know what it is about the lumbering undead that I find so endearing but they definitely charm me. And George A. Romero is THE master of zombie horror, having essentially created the genre with his 1968 black and white film, Night of the Living Dead. (There were some zombies before Romero but he defined them as we know them today, and anyone who saw him at his panel at last year's Comic-Con should be convinced of his master status in the horror genre.) This year, the 67-year-old Romero delivers his fifth zombie film, Diary of the Dead  (opening February 15 exclusively at the AMC Palm Promenade Theaters), so run, don’t “shamble,” over to catch the undead’s latest uprising.

The great thing about Romero’s zombies films is that you can enjoy them in any of a number of ways. If you just want a zombie gorefest, he delivers a bloody thrill ride of horror fun. But his films can also be appreciated as truly independent filmmaking in which Romero has complete control of everything; his films serve up primers on how to make a film on little or no money outside Hollywood. And finally, if you want something a little meatier, you can always find social commentary mixed in with all the blood and gore. Romero’s latest, Diary of the Dead, satisfies on all three levels.

George A. Romero Interview

George A. Romero reanimates the zombie genre with Diary of the Dead (Weinstein Company)

When George A. Romero made The Night of the Living Dead in 1968, he essentially invented a genre. But potential distributors were not initially impressed. In fact, they asked him to change the film's bleak ending. But he simply said, “F--k you.” That pretty much set the tone for Romero's relationship with the mainstream film industry. Like John Waters, he's a filmmaker who has remained outside the industry (Pittsburgh for Romero and Baltimore for Waters) making the films he wants. This year he delivers the much-anticipated zombie outing, Diary of the Dead (opening exclusively at the Palm Promenade Theaters).

“It's not a continuation, it's not sort of a fifth film in the series,” Romero explains, “It goes back to the first night when the dead are coming back. I sort of felt that I had gone far enough with Land of the Dead, and I was ready to get off of that train… There was a collection of short stories, actually two volumes, called Book of the Dead, and they were all stories about what happened on that first night. I came to realize that I could sort of keep doing stories about different people over those first two or three nights.”

San Diego Jewish Film Festival

The coming of age tale Sixty-Six is the opening night film of the SDJFF (Universal)

The San Diego Jewish Film Festival kicks off its 18th season on February 7 with a British charmer called Sixty Six. The eleven-day festival will play at five local venues and showcase more than three dozen films and assorted panel discussions. Listen to my radio preview of the festival or read on for more in-depth details.

The title of the opening night film, Sixty-Six, refers to the year 1966 when Bernie Reubens (Greg Sulkin) is in the midst of elaborate plans for his bar mitzvah. Proclaiming itself a "tru-ish story," the film offers a delightful portrait of a young boy trying to make an impression on his own family. But it's difficult to get attention when you’re competing with the World Cup, especially when England happens to be hosting the World Cup. To make matters worse, Bernie has to contend with the final match between Blighty and West Germany landing on the exact same day as his much-anticipated rite of passage.

Untraceable

Diane Lane as FBI agent Jennifer Marsh in Untraceable (Screen Gems)

Diane Lane first grabbed attention as a little girl sharing the screen with legendary veteran Laurence Olivier in 1979's A Little Romance. Since then she has matured into a fine actress gaining praise for work in Unfaithful, Under the Tuscan Sun and Hollywoodland. Now she takes on the role of FBI agent Jennifer Marsh in the film Untraceable (opening January 25 throughout San Diego). Imagine Hostel with a CSI twist and done for the Oxygen network crowd, and you'll have an idea of what Untraceable is like.

Silent Hill

Silent Hill goes from video game to big screen (Tri-Star)

Silent Hill (which opened throughout San Diego on April 21) was not available for preview to the press. That usually means the studio is afraid that they have a clinker on their hands and want to put off the bad reviews until after opening weekend. So is Silent Hill really that bad?

Henry Fool

Thomas Jay Ryan and Parker Posey in Hal Hartley's Henry Fool

Independent filmmaker Hal Hartley describes his latest film Henry Fool (opening June 25) as both a departure and an arrival because it explores many of his favorite themes but takes them in a new direction. These Days film critic Beth Accomando speaks with the director and has this review of Henry Fool.

Hal Hartley: "I'm interested in the particulars of to what extent we can know who somebody else is. What happens if the most dynamic and certainly most selfless man in town were also the most dangerous and perverted and unreliable. "

Ever since his ironically titled first film, The Unbelievable Truth, Hal Hartley has reveled in contradiction. In Henry Fool, he continues to explore lifes ironies by offering Thomas Jay Ryan as a wise man named Henry Fool. The film begins with Henrys arrival in a suburb of Queens where hes greeted by an introverted garbage man named Simon Grim. Henry's arrival typifies Hartley's style as simon comes out, looks around and then in a tight close up, kneels down and places his ear to the ground. As if on cue, Henry approaches from the distance and breaks the silence.