2008. 8.29 NOW PLAYING

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2008. 8.29 NOW PLAYING

Shine a Light (12)

Documentary, Music / 122 min. / English

See review, left.



Solstice (15)

Horror, Mystery / 87 mins. / English

This is the latest offering from writer and director Daniel Myrick, who worked on “The Blair Witch Project” (1999). Megan (Elizabeth Harnois) has just lost her twin sister Sophie who committed suicide a few months earlier. Megan and a bunch of her friends celebrate the summer solstice at a vacation home owned by Megan’s parents. As soon as she gets to the picturesque lakeside house, Megan begins to sense that her sister’s spirit is close by and her mental health seems to disintegrate.

She dreams of a muddy death and is obsessed with a keychain that appears to be watching her. Add to the mixture a bit of voodoo and talks with the dead and you have yourself a scary show devoid of techno wizardry but strong on shock value.



Welcome to the Quiet Room (15)

Comedy, Drama / 118 min. / Japanese

A 28 year-old workaholic, Aska Sakura (Yuki Uchida), wakes up in a highly restricted mental hospital. She has no idea why she is there. The nurse explains that she tried to commit suicide and has been sent here, but Aska finds this hard to believe.

But what she quickly finds out is that she is a drug addict and a physical and emotional wreck, a direct result of her lifestyle.

Alcohol and pills sent her into a coma and her boyfriend, who is clearly not playing with a full deck himself, takes her to the hospital.

She shares the ward with some of the strangest characters on film, and the quiet room is never quiet.

Her fellow patients include a former porn star and a musician with an eating disorder.

Aska finds a way to sustain her life in the hospital but she has to find out how she ever got committed and if she will ever get out.



Innocent Voices (15)

Drama, War / 110 min. / Mexican,

Based on the true story of screenwriter Oscar Torres’s childhood, this is a touching story about the reality of war told from a child’s point of view. Chava (Carlos Padilla) is an 11-year-old boy living in El Salvador.

It’s the 1980s and the government is fighting a revolutionary guerrilla organization, the FMLN, that recruits child soldiers when they turn 12.

His playground is now a battlefield and the violence is escalating, which is too hard for an 11-year-old to understand.

He looks for work to help his single mother but shortly after the joy of earning money, the war gets worse.

As his 12th birthday approaches, he has some adult decisions to face as he decides what to do.



Invisible Target (15)

Action / 129 min. / Chinese

In this Hong Kong martial arts movie three police offers (Nicholas Tse, Shawn Yue, and Jaycee Chan) lock and load to chase down a gang of hoodlums led by Chun Yang-sang (Jacky Wu).

Each of these tough cops is motivated by some past grudge.

The gang killed Tse’s lover during a daylight robbery a few months back; the gang humiliated Yue; and Chan’s sibling is nowhere to be found after he went undercover to spy on the gang.

The gang is now back in town to collect the loot from the robbery a few months back, which they suspect is in the hands of a mental patient played by Sam Lee.



Rudy: The Return of the Racing Pig (All)

Drama, Adventure / 99 min. / German

A motherless boy, Nickel (Maurice Teichert), brings a pig back from a trip to the countryside. He lives with his father, who just came back from a business trip and spends most of his time with his new girlfriend Anya (Sophie von Kessel) and her daughter Filly (Sina Richardt).

Filly and Nickel hate each other, but they team up to stop their parents getting married.

They create a host of mischief to mess up the wedding plans.

But the boy strikes a deal with his dad: If he is going to move in with his new girlfriend and her daughter, Rudy the pig gets to stay.

Thus begins a comic adventure in which Rudy saves the lives of two kids.



The Foreign Duck, the Native Duck and God (15)

Drama / 110 min. / Japanese

The movie unfolds over the course of six action-packed days, with flashbacks, according to reviewers.

On the first day Shiina (Gaku Hamada), a freshman at a university in Sendai, moves into a new apartment. A Bob Dylan fan, he is singing “Blowin’ in the Wind” to himself when he is greeted by his new neighbor, Kawasaki (Eita).

Being imposingly tall and having an air of confidence, Kawasaki is the polar opposite of the short, nervous, but somehow determined Shiina, but he announces himself as another Dylan fan. Dylan’s singing, Kawasaki proclaims, is like “the voice of God.”

Soon Kawasaki is taking Shiina into his confidence. If Shiina were smart, he would run in the opposite direction, but instead he finds himself drawn irresistibly into Kawasaki’s orbit.
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