Religulous

Bill Maher interviews Christ at the Holy Land Experience in Religulous (Lionsgate)

With nearly a dozen films and two festival to cover this week, I'll get to as much as I can today. Top of my list, though, is the Bill Maher-Larry Charles documentary Religulous (opening October 3 at Landmark's Hillcrest and La Jolla Village Theaters). Maher describes himself as a non-believer and he sets out to ask believers why they believe. Now this is not designed as a comprehensive, balanced exploration of faith and religion. It is a very personal take on faith and religion, and on the role they both take in American culture, society, and politics. Think of it like a humorous op ed piece, and as the funniest film so far this year.

Trailer Tuesday: Religulous

Pairing political humorist Bill Maher and Borat director Larry Charles on a documentary about religion just sounds like you're asking for trouble or at the very least controversy. But trouble may be exactly what the new film Religulous wants to stir in the final weeks oging into the presidential election. Maher and Charles are self-described disbelievers who join forces to try and figure out why so many people are so blindly devoted to religion. Maher, raised by a Jewish mother and Catholic father, long ago renounced his faith in a higher being and now he wants to find out what makes other believe. Many may find his tone insulting and his approach one-sided but Maher is also consistently funny and provocative, and the documentary does raise questions about the role faith plays in our society. The trailer is courtesy of Lionsgate and is scheduled to open on October 3.

Proud American

Immigrants become citizens in Proud American (Lightsource)

Fourteen years ago, local filmmaker Fred Ashman began working on the concept for what would become Proud American (opening September 12 in select theaters including Regal Rancho Del Rey, AMC La Jolla, UltraStar Mission Valley, AMC Mission Valley, AMC Fashion Valley and Edwards Mira Mesa). Ashman, who founded Multi Image Productions here in San Diego more that thirty years ago, got serious about the project in 2002 and began to seek funding. The film, which will be shown in IMAX at some theaters, opens across the nation and Ashman hopes the film will help set the tone for people as they prepare to go to the polls and elect a new president.

Brideshead Revisited

Ben Whishaw and Matthew Goode star in a new adaptation of Brideshead Revisited (Miramax)

We get a break from superheroes this week as a new adaptation of Evelyn Waugh's 1945 novel Brideshead Revisited comes to the big screen. PBS adapted Brideshead Revisited back in 1981. The very popular mini-series concerned class and religion in pre-war England, and it launched Jeremy Irons' career. But a mini-series has the luxury of time that a single feature film does not. So that's the challenge facing Julian Jarrold as he revisits Brideshead Revisited (opened August 1 at Landmark's Hillcrest and La Jolla Village Theaters) and must decide what to cut and what to hold onto from Waugh's novel. So while the PBS series got to cover more of the actual text, this new film offers a truncated but more narrowly focused version of the book.

The X-Files Teaser

Together again! David Duchovney and Gillian Anderson in The X-Files 2 (20th Century Fox)

With the new X-Files movie opening in the midst of Comic-Con, I fear I may not get to my review up until Monday. So here's a little teaser. This Friday,The X-Files proves you can go home again... or at least you can return to a cancelled TV series on the big screen. Six years after the Fox TV show was cancelled and ten years after the first X-Files movie, creator Chris Carter is bringing the characters of FBI agents Fox Mulder and Dana Scully back in a feature film. Arriving in theaters on July 25, the second film takes its title from the slogan on the poster that adorned Mulder’s office: "I Want to Believe." That title holds particular significance for series creator Chris Carter.

“I always thought of The X Files as a search for god,” Carter said, “and that was a big part of the inspiration. As for a particular religion? There is no particular religion. It was really, ‘the truth is out there’ is for me, is the mantra, but “I want to believe,” that poster on Mulder’s wall, says it all.”

Library Screening: Women of Islam

Women of Islam screens for free May 4 at the San Diego Central Library. (Farheen Umar)

The San Diego Public Library will present Women of Islam: Veiling and Seclusion as part of its ongoing One Book, One San Diego reading campaign for the book Three Cups of Tea: One Man's Mission to Promote Peace... One School at a Time by Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin. Last month the Library screened Majid Majidi's Children of Heaven. For Women of Islam, Ghada Osman, Ph.D. will facilitate a discussion after the screening, which begins at 2 p.m. on Sunday, May 4 in the auditorium of the Central Library, located at 820 E Street in dowtown San Diego. This event is free to the public. WOmen of Islam was made by Farheen Umar and was screened on KPBS-TV back in 2004. At that time I had a chance to interview the San Diego filmmaker. Umar is currently working for CNBC Pakistan.

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.

San Diego Black Film Festival

Escape From Luanda screens February 1 at the San Diego Black Film Festival (Seventh Art)

The Fifth Annual San Diego Black Film Festival kicks off Thursday January 31st at the Regal United Artists Theaters at Horton Plaza. Opening night highlights an eclectic mix of documentaries, shorts, features and world premieres along with an opening night reception and a Hip Hop Movie Marathon to take you late into the evening. The four-day event will showcase a hundred films, parties, panels, awards and celebrities. There will even be a Shaft/Superfly Party on Friday night. Can you dig it?

There Will Be Blood

There Will Be Blood (opening January 11 at AMC Mission Valley and on January 18 at Landmarks La Jolla Village Theaters) is not the film fans of Paul Thomas Anderson may be expecting but it's a film that should please them nonetheless. The filmmaker who gave us Hard Eight, Boogie Nights, Magnolia and Punch Drunk Love now turns to an 80-year-old Upton Sinclair novel called Oil! as inspiration for his epic tale of greed and ambition.

Upton Sinclair was famed for his muckraking expose The Jungle, and for the socialist agenda he often put forth in his novels. In freely adapting Oil!, Anderson leaves the socialism and muckraking behind but holds on to Sinclair's theme of the corrupting power of money and capitalism. This also marks the first time Anderson has not penned an original screenplay from which to direct.

Signs

Mel Gibson and family in Signs

Just as you shouldn't judge a book by its cover, neither should you judge a film by its marketing campaign. The initial ads for Signs (opening August 2 throughout San Diego) seem designed to attract a large opening weekend crowd but may mislead audiences as to what the film's really about. The fast paced trailers emphasize tension and will lure people looking for the next big summer blockbuster but may scare away the more serious minded viewer who would actually be more appreciative of what the film is actually trying to do.