The Ninth Annual San Diego Asian Film Festival

Jimmy Tsai is hilarious in Ping Pong Playa, SDAFF's opening night film (IFC Films)

The San Diego Asian Film Festival kicks off its 9th year tonight with the opening night feature Ping Pong Playa by Jessica Yu. The film boasts a hilarious performance by Jimmy Tsai as a young Asian man obsessed with being a basketball player and taking on the name of C-Dub. The film taps into a similar vibe as the Filipino comedy The Flip Side that screened back in 2001. But since opening night films are often sold out, I have two alternate recommendations: Assembly from Mainland China and Public Enemy Returns from South Korea. Although the festival is strongly committed to showcasing Asian American films, I have always been more satisfied by the international titles where the emphasis is less on exploring identity and delivering a message, and more on pushing the envelope in creativity and storytelling.

Transsiberian

Emily Mortimer is an American abroad in Transsiberian (First Look International)

Transsiberian (opening August 29 at Landmark's Hillcrest Cinemas) is a kindred spirit to the recent Tell No One (still playing at Landmark's La Jolla Village Cinemas). Both films present themselves as thrillers with crimes, cops, deceit, and innocent victims fueling their tense and occasionally violent narratives. But the real and somewhat disguised core of both films is the marital relationship of the main characters. Tell No One was an obsessed love story dressed up as a thriller about murder and deception while Transsiberian is a film about a marriage under pressure despite its trappings as a tale of drug trafficking and international intrigue.

Boy A

Peter Mullan and Andrew Garfield in Boy A (The Weinstein Company)

It's too bad Boy A (opening August 22 at Landmark's Ken Cinema) is opening with so little fanfare and no press screening. The film is the second feature by Irish-born John Crowley, his first being the darkly comic Intermission (with Colin Farrell). His sophomore feature, Boy A explores bleak territory but its insistence on not tying everything up in neat little bows is to be commended. It serves up a compelling story and asks viewers to connect all the dots rather than telling how it all fits together.

SDWFF Fundraising Screening of The Gits

The San Diego Women's Film Festival will be screening the music documentary The Gits as a fundraising event Wednesday August 20 at 9pm at the Whistle Stop Bar (2236 Fern Street, 619-284-6784). Entering its sixth year, SDWFF will kick off its 2008 festival on October 2. But the Festival, like so many non-profits this year, needs your help in raising funds so that it can continue to build on its past successes. The Gits will have its San Diego sneak preview at the Whistle Stop and will have its theatrical premiere at the Festival in October.

Directed by Kerri O'Kane, The Gits is the rousing and heartbreaking story of Seattle band The Gits, whose promising start was cut short by the tragic murder of lead singer Mia Zapata (who was rumored to have been descended from Mexican revolutionary Emiliano Zapata).The documentary mixes musical history with murder mystery as it weaves a tale about a punk band that was beginning to distinguish itself.

Tickets are a suggested $5 donation (of course you can always give more!). I have served on the SDWFF selection committee since the Festival's inception and I value the work it has done to highlight films by women so I hope you will come out and support the festival and quality films by women by coming out to the Whistle Stop. You will also be supporting the Festival's new, dynamic curator Holly Jones whose passion for film has already been proven with her Citizen Video store. Com'on, it'll be like going to see the band play live at a bar -- you couldn't ask for a more perfect setting for a film like this.

Tell No One

Francois Cluzet finds himself a suspect in his wife's murder in Tell No One (Music Box Films)

I don't envy any film opening against The Dark Knight. That's tough. But I hope the new French thriller Tell No One (opening July 18 at Landmark's Hillcrest and La Jolla Village Theaters) doesn't get completely over shadowed by the Batman. Based on American writer Harlan Coben's novel, Tell No One serves up an obsessive love story wrapped up in a thriller about murder and deception.

The Woman in the Window

Joan Bennett and Edward G. Robinson in Woman in the Window (RKO Radio Picures)

While I'll never complain about an opportunity to see The Big Lebowski or Pulp Fiction, I have to admit that those popular titles have become the reliable mainstay of midnight movies and local film series. Don't get me wrong, it's great they get play on the big screen but I sometimes wish for a little more innovation and creativity in film programming so that a more diverse selection of films is made available. So that's where Ralph DeLaurio, programmer for Tops Presents Cinema Under the Stars, comes in. While the outdoor summer venue has its share of popular titles (Some Like It Hot, and yes The Big Lebowski), DeLaurio also takes great care to highlight some less popular but equally impressive works. On Thursday and Friday (May 29 and 30), you can find the rare dark gem The Woman in the Window. This 1944 film noir classic by Fritz Lang serves up Edward G. Robinson as a professor who begins a downward spiral when he spies a portrait of a beautiful young woman. Robinson's married professor is then lured into the apartment of a sexy model played by Joan Bennett. Murder and deception quickly follow. The film boasts a screenplay by Nunnally Johnson. But it's Lang's moody direction that plays up the inevitable noir themes of guilt, paranoia, betrayal, arrogance and violence. This film doesn't screen very often so make every effort to seek it out. Oh... and did I mention, it's in glorious, seductive black and white.

Street Kings

Hugh Laurie and Forest Whitaker square off in Street Kings (Fox Searchlight)

Street Kings (opening April 11 throughout San Diego) has some impressive pedigree. It's based on a story by James Ellroy, a hardboiled writer who's been called the Demon Dog of American Crime Fiction. First time director David Ayer had previously scripted the dark cop films Training Day, Dark Blue, and Harsh Times. And the film boasts the talented Forest Whitaker and Hugh Laurie squaring off as a corrupt police captain and an Internal Affairs captain. Everything appears in place for a tough cop thriller exploring a grittier side of law enforcement.

Funny Games U.S.

Funny Games (1997) and Funny Games U.S. (Attitude Films and Warner Independent)

Remakes are a mainstay of Hollywood. If something worked once - do it again. But among remakes there are some oddities. Gus Van Sant did a shot for shot remake of Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho. The only differences - new actors, color film and the fact that the remake couldn't hold a candle to the original. So that remake seemed ridiculously unnecessary. Then there's the case of Japanese director Takashi Shimizu who made Ju-On/The Grudge for Japanese video, then remade it as a Japanese feature, then remade it again as a Hollywood film. He also made a Japanese sequel and an American sequel, and is now on The Grudge 3. Shimizu gives new meaning to the notion of a one- trick pony. This year brings Michael Haneke's English language remake of his 1997 German/Austrian film Funny Games, and now called Funny Games U.S. (opened March 14 at Landmark's Hillcrest Cinemas, Edwards Mira Mesa, AMC La Jolla and UltraStar Flower Hill). I can't think of any other filmmaker who has done a shot-for-shot remake of his own film. (If you know of any please tell me.)

Can’t Have Too Much of a Good Thing

The past, present and future? No Country for Old Men leaves that and much more open to interpretation. (Miramax)

No Country for Old Men picked up an armful of Oscars last month pleasing art house fans but leaving others scratching their heads. (This year's Oscar ceremony, honoring a host of smaller indie films, was the lowest rated Oscar show in years signalling to Hollywood that mainstream audiences weren't thrilled with the artier selections.) Critics embraced No Country for Old Men but many people left the theater baffled by the film's less than conclusive ending. The film comes out on DVD today providing the film's fans with another opportunity to enjoy the Coens' meticulous filmmaking style, and skeptics the opportunity to give the film a second chance. I have always found that the Coens' films get better with each viewing so I suggest giving the film another shot if you felt frustrated by the ending. I own all their films on DVD and laser laser disc (yes I still have a huge collection of those dinosaurs!) precisely because I find new things in them every time I watch them. For anyone who missed the film completely, it serves up a bleak and brutal adaptation of Cormac McCarthy's novel about a drug deal gone wrong, a found stash of stolen money, and an unstoppable killer. The film stars Tommy Lee Jones, Josh Brolin and Oscar-winner Javier Bardem.

The DVD offers three Bonus Features: The Making of No Country for Old Men (about translating the book to the screen); Working with the Coens (about how the brothers work together); and Diary of a Country Sheriff (Tommy Lee Jone on his character of Sheriff Bell). But you're lucky to get any extras from the laconic Coens, who tend to reveal little of themselves or their craft. The Coens are probably the only filmmakers who ever released a director's cut in which their revised version was shorter than their original release, that was for the re-release of Blood Simple.

Read my review of No Country for Old Men and enjoy some of the thoughtful comments posted by readers. 

The Signal

Do you have the crazy? That's the question The Signal asks. (Magnolia Pictures)

Calling TV a wasteland is old news. But suggesting that our televisions -- and also cell phones and radios -- could be the means by which people are transformed into homicidal maniacs, well that's a bit fresher. The Signal (opened on February 22 throughout San Diego) serves up a triptych of horror, with each segment helmed by a different filmmaker.

The Signal opens like a 70s low budget grindhouse picture, something American International could have produced. An obviously deranged killer brutalizes women on the screen. Is this the movie we've paid to see? At first we're not sure but then the image distorts and eventually degrades into mere noise on the screen, and we realize we were watching an image on a TV. We find ourselves in a dark, claustrophobic bedroom where the TV has gone on the fritz. We also discover a pair of young lovers in the room. It makes you wonder, though, was the slasher film meant to fuel their passion or was it just something that came on late at night without them noticing? It doesn't seem the type of thing either Ben (Justin Welborn) or Mya (Anessa Ramsey) would be interested in, so it makes you wonder if it was on for some other reason (more on that later). The apartment belongs to Ben and he's having an affair with Mya. He keeps trying to convince Mya to leave her husband Lewis (A.J. Bowen) but to no avail. She insists that she has to return to Lewis, or there might be bad consequences. She even tries to call Lewis from Ben's apartment to warn him that she'll be home late. But the phones, like the TV, don't work and are just transmitting some kind of static noise.