How much you respond to Todd Haynes' experimental Bob Dylan biopic I'm Not There (Weinstein) may directly relate to how highly Dylan ranks in your personal pantheon. Dylan remains one of the slipperiest figures in pop history; accomplished as it was, Martin Scorsese's No Direction Home failed to pin him down, and it had 210 minutes to do it. Haynes' solution to cast six different actors to represent six different phases in the musician's career was a masterstroke, though the 135-minute soup that results is both intriguingly and frustratingly elusive…
After her hunky Irish fiancé dies, a woman begins receiving a series of letters from beyond the grave, leading her on a whimsical journey through Ireland and through her own grief. Romantic or creepy? The dead-on-arrival romance P.S. I Stalk You—excuse us, P.S. I Love You (Warner Bros.)—falls squarely in the latter category. Having a wacky undead Irishman micromanaging your life isn't a fantasy many women seem anxious to realize…
The stealthy pro-life drama Bella (Lionsgate) won the Audience Award at the 2006 Toronto Film Festival and quietly made a small fortune in general release, even though it's bolstered by a point-of-view that doesn't necessarily speak to liberal-minded arthouse audiences. Too bad the film is so ugly, sentimental, and false: The message seems to be that if you're a single, poor, unemployed, pregnant waitress, you should keep your baby, because you're bound to befriend a soulful ex-soccer player in need of redemption and his warm-hearted extended family…
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"Irresistible" isn't the right word to describe the feminist horror film Teeth (Weinstein), but its premise of a virginal teenager cursed with "vagina dentata" certainly catches the eye. This shocking anatomical anomaly is both a frightening, David Cronenberg-like expression of psychic distress and an empowering tool for a sexually uncertain girl who's in need of some leverage. First-time director Mitchell Lichtenstein (son of pop artist Roy) lets the camp-horror tone get away from him, but Jess Weixler's uninhibited performance helps hold the film together…
