If you’re a documentary fan, this would be a good weekend to free yourself up for going to the movies, new releases include THE ARMSTRONG LIE and AT BERKELEY. Of course, like most weekends there’s a good mix of indie films of all different types , including literary adaptations, dramas, and comedies such as ASS BACKWARDS .
GREAT EXPECTATIONS
Though based on one of Charles Dickens’ most beloved works, I haven’t heard much about the latest adaptation of Great Expectations from director Mike Newell. It’s been nearly a year since it was first released in the UK, and its cast — including Jeremy Irvine and Helena Bonham Carter — has received strong reviews.
BEST MAN DOWN
Though it originally had an internet release last month, the dramedy Best Man Down will be in limited release this weekend in theaters. It is the first film written and directed by Ted Koland, who was a writer on TV’s Fashion House and Saints & Sinners. Best Man Down stars Justin Long and Jess Weixler as newlyweds who have to cancel their honeymoon after the death of their best man, who shockingly died right after the couple’s wedding ceremony. Well, that would definitely kill the party’s mood, right?
HOW I LIVE NOW
Saoirse Ronan has made a number of indie films since first becoming known to mainstream audiences with The Lovely Bones, and in How I Live Now she stars as an American teenager living with her relatives in the UK when a violent uprising turns the country into hell. Director Kevin Macdonald can handle real-life drama well based on his documentaries and The Last King of Scotland, so this is definitely worth a look.
THE ARMSTRONG LIE (Documentary)
Director Alex Gibney was hired in 2009 to create a documentary about Lance Armstrong’s incredible comeback to cycling. I am sure you know what happened next. Gibney has a history of great documentaries about cover-ups (including Enron: The Smartest Guys In the Room), so he wound in the right place at the right time to make a documentary not about Armstrong’s return to cycling but Armstrong’s history of doping and his decades-long history of denials and coverups. Though the Armstrong fallout still hasn’t ended, this doucmentary serves as a way for the public to begin analyzing Armstrong’s fall from grace.
ASS BACKWARDS
I don’t know about you, but child beauty pageants have always seemed to be a potentially bad thing to involve your children in to me. The comedy Ass Backwards explores this idea, with two women who finished last in a childhood beauty pageant years ago (June Diane Raphael and Casey Wilson, who also wrote the film) who return to the pageant years later in an attempt to right past “wrongs” committed against them. Critics have generally given it a pass, but if you’re a fan of the comediennes who star in this it’s likely right up your alley.
AT BERKELEY (Documentary)
Every critic who has sat through this four hour, four minute documentary about the current operations and troubling budget issues of The University of California at Berkeley has raved about it. I don’t think I’m the only who would suggest that if you are interested, you might want to wait for it to hit VOD or cable in order to watch it at your own pace! Nonetheless, it’s great to say that veteran documentarian Frederick Wiseman doesn’t feel that he needs to cut his films down to 90 or 100 minutes for commercial appeal.
THE MOTEL LIFE
Emile Hirsch, soon-to-be-star of the John Belushi biopic, stars in this adaptation of the Willy Vlautin novel about two aimless brothers who live from motel to motel and the chilling changes that undergo in their relationship after one brother (Stephen Dorff) is involved in a terrible crime. The film is directed by first-time directors Gabe Polsky and Alan Polsky and won three major awards at last year’s Rome Film Fest.
Other notable weekend indie, foreign & documentary releases:
THE WIND RISES
REACHING FOR THE MOON
GO FOR SISTERS