Joseph L. Mankiewicz’s
All About Eve
From the Museum of the Moving Image
Times Square Centennial Film Festival:
From The Streets & Stage To The Screen
Loews State Theater

Reviewed March 14th 6:30 PM by Caroline Smith

Compliments, insults, lipstick aside, it's all laid on thick in All About Eve. This 1950s classic, starring a smoky eyed diva, is Bette Davis at her finest. Playing an aging Broadway actress, Margo Channing seems to have it all; a starry career, a man who loves her, and a circle of friends. However, the hair-pulling begins when little Miss Eve Harrington manipulates her way into Margo's life and disrupts the black and white, or "Margo vs. the rest of the world" picture. She buzzes in like a butterfly with all the pleasantries and propriety that an actress like Margo Channing would adore in a young fan. Anne Baxter, who plays Eve Harrington, gives a stunning performance as a sweet nobody who finds herself in New York and aspires to get on the stage. She studies Margo as if she were a blueprint and successfully makes it hard for us to hate her.

The film straps Margo Channing into an emotional roller-coaster ride. In her frustration with the beautiful Eve Harrington, Margo is non-empathetic and almost scary in her outbursts. Fine, she is a real bitch. When she cannot get to the theater one evening, Eve gives the term "understudy," new meaning as she quickly steals the spotlight and receives rave reviews. This is a film about ambition and betrayal. Hollywood? Yes. There is even a small cameo appearance by Marilyn Monroe (but is she ever really just a cameo?). Her character exploits the naivete and beauty of budding actresses of that time. One can be sure that this black and white film bursts with color when Marilyn Monroe enters the room in her mink coat.

All About Eve is delicious. The bee, Bette Davis, stings hard with her tight-lipped, snide remarks and glaring eyes. The butterfly on the other flower, Anne Baxter, sprays perfume on everybody she meets and eventually proves her talent on the big stage. We see transitions as each woman becomes the other and the gloss fades. Theater critic Addison DeWitt, played by George Sanders, is responsible for both Eve's fresh career and his comments on "aging actresses," eluding to Margo Channing. But in every show, the curtain must rise and reveal something we hadn't seen before. In a fit of tears, Eve slips up for the first time. DeWitt learns about all the lies she had told in order to get where she was today. His character is quick, almost detective-like, and he is the only representation of truth in this world of lying, cheating, and hurt.

In the final scenes, we watch an Eve who goes home to her apartment and fixes herself a drink. Behind her is a young girl, asleep on the setee. The fan awakes and it's a picture of young Eve Harrington with Margo Channing all over again. However this time around, this is a different Eve. All I can say is that the end of this film mirrors the beginning. You have to see it to believe it.

Starring Bette Davis, Anne Baxter, George Sanders

For info on tickets, showtimes and guest speakers
www.timessquarenyc.org/film

Loews State Theater |1540 Broadway
( between 45th and 46th Streets)

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Andrea and Antonio Frazzi’s
Certi Bambini/Stolen Childhood
Monday March 28th @ 8:30PM @ MOMA
Lincoln Center’s New Directors New Films

“Recounts society’s failure to offer another destiny to a child whose fate seems marked from birth” – Diego Di Silva

Cast: Gianluca Di Gennaro (Rosario), Carmine Recano (Damiano), Arturo Paglia (Santino), Miriam Candurro (Caterina), Sergio Solli (Casaluce), Rolando Ravello, (Sciancalepore), Mario Giordano (Brasile), Nuccia Fumo (Grandmother Lilina), Marcello Romolo (Don Alfonso), Emanuela Garuccio (Gemma), Patrizio Rispo (Qui), Terence Guida (Aniello), Gabriele Parrella (Giornaletto), Alessandro Guasco (Venturino)

Reviewed by: Diedre Kilgore

Certi Bambini tells the story of 11 year-old gang leader Rosario (Ginaluca di Gennaro), who takes a train ride to a destination that will undoubtedly change his life. On this journey, we watch as he recalls images and memories of his quickly fading youth and the chain of events, which have placed him on this train.

Along this journey, Rosario remembers his recent past, almost like it was several years ago. We see his relationship with his pill-popping grandmother, beautifully played by Nuccia Fumo, a grandmother who offers him little guidance but plenty of wise words to live by, the memory of which he still carries with him. At other times, we see his trips to a woman’s shelter, where he falls in love with the beautiful sixteen year-old Caterina (Miriam Candurro), and then develops a jealous one-way rivalry with the charismatic Santino (Arturo Paglia), a volunteer at the shelter who Rosario reluctantly looks up to. We are invited along as two young punks, Rosario and his more child-like friend Venturino (Alessandro Guasco), accidentally discover a gun. And, from this discovery of the gun, Rosario is suddenly thrust into further maturity in the volatile world in which he lives.

Through Certi Bambini, we are able to see how the street life of a young gangster appeals to Rosario and simultaneously to see his intermittent feelings of longing for the life of a normal child. Through the Rosario’s eyes, we see his dreams and his desire to live without the weight of blood and theft - his longing to live a life where his only cares might be flirting with girls and winning soccer games. Gianluca Di Gennaro’s far off looks hit the mark exactly, depicting Rosario’s many losses through the use of expertly executed silences - silences many adult actors oftentimes have trouble achieving.

Unapologetically, Certi Bambini deftly portrays the enticing glamour (laced with dangerous consequences) of the rite of passage of becoming a gangster.
Paolo Carnera’s camera work is masterful ( a brilliant use of light and reflection) and is wonderfully paired with Ginaluca Di Genarro’s tremendous ability to tell an untold-story.

Certi Bambini won Best film at the Czech Republic’s Karlovy Vary International Film Festival. The film is based on the novel by Diego Di Silva, Certi Bambini (which has been translated into five languages). The novel was awarded the Campiello, Brancati, Fiesole and Bergamo prizes and was a finalist for the Viareggio award.

For times, dates and other information about the Festival, log onto:
http://www.filmlinc.com/ndnf/index.html

Lincoln Center |Broadway from 60th through 66th
Museum of Modern Art |11 West 53rd Street

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Hubert Sauper’s
Darwin’s Nightmare
Lincoln Center’s New Directors New Films

“…I could make the same kind of observation in Sierra Leone, only the perch would be a diamond, in Honduras, a banana, and in Libya, Nigeria or Angola…the fish would be crude oil.” -Hubert Sauper, Director

Reviewed by Diedre Kilgore

Darwin’s Nightmare is a poignant documentary, set in Tanzania, which takes us on a revelatory journey of internal struggle through the viewing of bleak external images.

At some point in the 1960’s, the Nile Perch was introduced to Lake Victoria. This alien predator has since pretty much destroyed the ecological balance of the lake, and it is simultaneously creating economic chaos.

Darwin’s Nightmare is a fascinating film of contradictions, raising the question of how to fight a self-created monster. The introduction of the Nile Perch allowed for a giant economic boom, potentially a solution to the extreme poverty in that region. But instead of helping the local people, it was only lucrative for foreign businesses. While the presence of this fish has given the people of Tanzania an “economy”, it also magnified their economic suppression.

Watching Darwin’s Nightmare, we are introduced to the people whose existence has been altered by the presence of the Nile Perch. We meet the fishermen, who dive in crocodile-infested waters, with no doctors to help them if they are attacked. We watch the mannerisms of the hardened prostitutes who get brutally beaten, raped and sometimes killed. We listen to a night-watchman, making $1 a day risking his life to protect the fish factory from intruders, hoping for war so he can make more money as a soldier. We are shown the paintings of a boy, who sells images of suffering street kids - all homeless because their parents have either died from Aids, hunger, work hazards, or murder. We sit with an Indian factory worker, who constantly attempts to keep the conversation light. We witness pilots acting violent, racist and wasteful. And after watching a series of interviews with fishermen, prostitutes, fish driers, pilots, and even African dignitaries and European commissioners, it seems that no one has a solution.

Throughout this film, the camera is turned to the sky to show an alarming number of planes, constantly arriving and departing, creating a suffocating reminder of the daily suppression these people live with - struggling to survive, only to have everything taken away from them. These large, ex-soviet cargo planes arrive empty, and leave full of Tanzania’s only resource. We eventually learn they are arriving in other parts of Africa with a planes full of weapons to supply to the war-torn Congolese regions, currently the deadliest conflicts the world has seen since World War II. They then return with fish bought from Tanzania to distribute throughout the world, thus creating a catastrophic paradox.

The fishermen live in huts by the lake, where they constantly die from hunger or HIV. When their husbands die, the wives have no choice but to become prostitutes to survive. These same fishermen oftentimes spend their hard-earned money on the prostitutes, thus feeding a horrific cycle which not only keeps the fishermen extremely poor, but it also continually perpetuates the constant spread of HIV among the population.

Not allowed to fish in the lake for themselves, the people of Tanzania cannot afford to eat the costly Nile Perch, but only are able to purchase leftover carcasses from the factory. Their children fight over handfuls of rice, an unreliable source of food that is not suited for such a drought-laden region. In addition, young children have found a way to produce a sniff-able drug by melting down the fish boxes, a habit that has been fatal to some of them.

And just as if the situation couldn’t get any worse, it turns out that the Nile Perch are cannibals. It is theorized that they are eating their young, in order to survive, thus slowly destroying themselves. Therefore, this explosive ecosystem is about to combust, potentially creating an even bleaker situation than the one they’re facing now.

Hubert Sauper deserves to be congratulated for having the courage and conviction to make Darwin’s Nightmare. In this world we, as individuals, have a tendency to feel helpless in global situations. By creating this documentary, Hubert Sauper has taken an important step in exposing our self-created monsters, arming us with knowledge, and giving us the hope that perhaps as a human collective we can find a way to un-think these monsters from existence.

“These are real people who wonderfully represent the complexity of this system, and for me, they represent the real enigma.”
-Hubert Sauper

For times, dates and other information about the Festival, log onto:
http://www.filmlinc.com/ndnf/index.html

Lincoln Center |Broadway from 60th through 66th
Museum of Modern Art |11 West 53rd Street

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Zézé Gamboa’s
The Hero
Lincoln Center’s New Directors New Films

Starring: Oumar Makena Diop, Milton Coelho, Patricia Bull, Neusa Borges, Raul Rosario, Orlando Sergio, Maria Ceica, Catarina Matos, Prospero Joao, Nelo Helder, Miguel Hurst, Adelino Caracol and Gracy Costa. `

Reviewed by Wendy R. Williams

Angola is a beautiful land that is seared by desperate poverty, scarred by war and filled with damaged people, people living without families and many (due to horrific land mines) living without limbs. I have never been to Angola and it is doubtful that I ever will go there. Before I saw The Hero, I know very little about Angola other then that it is one of the too many African countries that suffered through decades of civil war.

But that is the beauty of watching foreign films. When you watch a film that has been made on the other side of the world, you get to painlessly “go there” and in a limited way, meet the people and see the land.

The Hero is a beautiful film that tells the story of four characters whose lives intertwine as they try to make their way and find their own peace in the aftermath of the civil war: Vitorio, a soldier who lost a leg in the war; Manu, a young boy who lost both parents and is being raised by his grandmother; Maria Barbara, a prostitute who lost her own son; and Joana, a mulata school teacher who is trying to make her own world a better place.

All four of the characters are scarred and are desperately trying to rebuild the lives they lost. In the aftermath of the tornado that was their civil war, they attempt to pick up pieces from the “dump” that is now their land and rebuild their lives. Someone needs a prosthesis, someone needs a husband, someone needs a son and someone else needs a father. And they all need the basic unit of civilization, a family. And even if they cannot find their original father, husband, son or leg, perhaps they can mend their souls by glueing together the disconnected pieces left lying on the ground after their world exploded.

Bravo to Zézé Gamboa for having the courage and the vision to create this film in a land where only two years ago there was fighting in the streets.

For times, dates and other information about the Festival, log onto:
http://www.filmlinc.com/ndnf/index.html

Lincoln Center |Broadway from 60th through 66th

 

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Nimrod Antal’s
Kontroll
Wednesday March 30th @ 6PM
Wednesday March 30th @ 8:45PM
Thursday March 31th @ 9PM
Lincoln Center’s New Directors New Films
Walter Reade Theater

Hey Trainspotting fans, it’s time to jump on the subway!

Reviewed by Wendy R. Williams

The Budapest subway that is, the setting for Kontroll, a farcical tale about a mismatched bunch of subway ticket inspectors (hooligans really), who have sunk so low in life that they now have unfortunate job of collecting tickets from the snarling deadbeats who ride the subway in this film's tripping world . Kontroll manages to be both farcical and mystical. It is filled with fairy tale illusions. And I’m talking about fairy tales the way the Brothers Grim meant to tell them: a world filled with trolls, fighting bears, haunted tunnels and beautiful castles (like the enchanting conductor’s cab inhabited by a wonderfully drunken goblin of a train-main). And this beautiful and horrifying world of Kontroll is served up with lots of ketchup, blood, vomit, and pulverized corpses (Hey, I told you it was like Trainspotting).

Kontroll tells the story of Bulcsu (played by the very talented Sandor Csanyi) who is driven by his internal demons to live and work in the underground. There he heads a ragtag crew of tickets inspectors who are menaced by: rival crews of inspectors, the before mentioned deadbeat subway riders, a shaving-cream-squirting hoodlum and an “Angel of Death” (a ghoul who enjoys pushing unsuspecting riders to their deaths on the tracks). There he also meets his love, Sofie (played by the charismatic Eszter Bela), and by meeting and wanting to be with Sofie, Bulcsu sets in motion the internal changes that let him confront (shall we say push?) his demons and having done so, he then has the courage to resurface above ground.

Kontroll is a lot of fun and I have been telling every young man I know to do go see it. But then I though, hey wait, I'm not a young man and I liked it. So go see Kontroll, it’s a hoot to watch and your chance to see the glories of the Budapest subway (the world’s second oldest), from the comfort of a reclining seat in New York City.

I am not the only one who liked Kontroll. Kontroll was the recipient of a Gold Hugo at this year’s Chicago International Film Festival, Le Prix de la Jeunesse (Youth Prize) at the 2004 Cannes Film Festival; multi winner at the 2004 Budapest Hungarian Film Critics Awards (best director, lead actor, supporting actors and cinematography), best director and best cinematography at the 2004 Copenhagen International Film Festival, as well as the Perrier "Bubbling Under" Award for emerging filmmakers at the US Comedy Arts Festival in Aspen. Wow!

Kontroll is written and directed by Nimrod Antal and stars Sandor Csonyi, Sandor Bador, Zoltan Mucsi, Zsolt Nagy, Csaba Pindroch and Eszter Balla. It is produced by Tamas Hutlassa. Gyula Pados is the director of photography and Neo composed the original score. P.S. The score rocked.

For times, dates and other information about the Festival, log onto:
http://www.filmlinc.com/ndnf/index.html

Kontrol will open in New York City on Friday, April 1st at The Angelika Film Center (18 W Houston Street at Mercer) and Lincoln Plaza 6 Cinemas (1886 Broadway).

Lincoln Center Walter Reade Theater 65th Street between Broadway and Amsterdam
(Walk East from 65th and Broadway)

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Stanley Kwan’s
Lan Yu
Chinese with English Subtitles

Reviewed courtesy of Lincoln Center Film Society Hong Kong Film Series
Starring: Hu Jun, Liu Ye & Su Jin

Reviewed by Jessica Cogan

I know. It’s cliche to say that loves strikes when you least expect it. But in Lan Yu, a recent feature in Lincoln Center’s Hong Kong Film series, love not only strikes when it’s least expected, but between unconventional lovers during unpredictable times. Lan Yu is the story of a highly successful and jaded Beijing businessman, Handong (Jun Hu), who finds love in the arms of the naive and fresh-faced country boy, Lan Yu (Ye Liu). The two first meet when Lan Yu, a starving architecture student, agrees to spend the night with Handong for a little cash. But when Lan Yu gives himself over wholeheartedly, Handong finds himself drawn into more than a one-night stand.

Lan Yu is open and expressive about his feelings and early on shows his love for Handong. But Handong resists and insists instead on maintaining emotional distance and treating Lan Yu like a kept lover, not a partner. When Handong goes too far and brings home another boy, Lan Yu leaves heartbroken. Handong believes he’s gotten Lan Yu out of his system. But the following year, when he hears about the clashes in Tiananmen Square, Handong rushes to find Lan Yu and ensure his safety. They reunite and rekindle their romance, but Handong is still unable to abandon himself to happiness. Instead, he marries a woman in an effort to do what is right and proper. Predictably, his marriage falls apart and he finds himself back with Lan Yu.

Over the years, the two come together and fall apart. Handong always holds back, resists his love for Lan Yu, perhaps unable to believe that love like Lan Yu’s – forgiving, generous, raw – can really exist. Then Handong loses everything: his business and finances come under investigation and he is jailed. Lan Yu pays for his release with money saved over the course of their long relationship, and that’s when Handong realizes what he has in Lan Yu. So the road is clear, then, for them to live happily ever after. But fate has a strange way of interfering just when everything seems in place.

Lan Yu is a bittersweet, compact film exploring taboo love in the midst of social and political upheaval. Hu and Liu offer fine performances and create compelling characters. Stanley Kwan’s direction is dark, smoky and claustrophobic, underscoring the secretive nature of Handong and Yu’s relationship. Lan Yu is an tmospheric and moving film that stays with you as few films can. For more information log onto: http://www.au-cinema.com/Lan-Yu.htm

Lan Yu was directed by Stanley Kwan and written by Jimmy Ngai. It is currently available on DVD.

 

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Huck Botko and Andrew Gurland’s
Mail Order Wife
Open Nationwide

Starring: Andrew Gurland as Andrew, Eugenia Yuan as Lichi and
Adrian Martinez as Adrian

Reviewed by Rachael Roberts

It all seems so easy; open a catalog, pick out a lovely lady, pay some
money and presto - you can be a happily married man. This is what
Adrian, a doorman from Queens, thinks when he decides to marry
a mail order wife. And he didn't even have to pay for her,
Andrew Gurland, an opportunistic filmmaker, covered all the costs in
exchange for letting him document the experience. Things take a turn
for the worse, though when Andrew starts to question Adrian's motives
for "buying" a wife and ultimately falls in love with the wife himself.

Writer/director duo Andrew Garland and Huck Botko trick the audience into thinking Mail Order Wife is a true doc but it is definitely a trick, because Mail Order Wife is a mockumentary. And while it can be slow and sadistic at times, there are many gems including a boa constrictor named Chipwhich. The acting is very "real" and absolutely sells the movie as a documentary. Adrian is played by the terrific actor Adrian Martinez who can currently be seen at The Public in The Last Days of Judas Iscariot <see review in the theater section>. He is very endearing for a sadist and is nicely paired with Eugenia Yuan who turns out to be quite the schemster.

Mail Order is a fun movie and is now playing exclusively at the
Village East Cinemas. I would highly recommend you check it out before
its gone!

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Zornista Sophia’s
Mila from Mars
Lincoln Center New Directors New Films

“..deals with how and why you stop runing away and start facing your life
as it is. And what love has to do with surviving.” – Zornista Sophia
www.milafrommars.com

Written, Directed and Produced by Zornista Sophia

Cast: Vesela Kazakova (Mila), Asen Blatechky (The Teacher),Lyubomir Popov (Alex), Zlatina Todeva (Mother Zlata), Jordan Bikov (Jabnaki the Blue), V. Vasilev Zueka (Director of the Orphanage

Reviewed by: Diedre Kilgore

Mila from Mars opens in Sarajevo as Mila, a teenage orphan (expertly played by Vesela Kazakova), is “rescued” by Alex (Lyubomir Popov) the local drug dealer who makes her his whore. Mila, not perceiving herself as a whore, falls in love with the abusive Alex and her life with him turns out to be nothing but a series of disappointments. In the midst of a desperate attempt to find a place to hide, the pregnant Mila hops into a grocery truck and then she unwittingly embarks on a personal path of enlightenment.

Mila finds herself in a small village in the Bulgarian town of Sofia, where she instantly becomes an object of obsession among the delightful elderly pot-smoking villagers. As luck would have it, though, this happens to be Alex’s marijuana plantation. Mila gives birth to Alex’s baby with the help of the entire village who embrace her and shower her baby with gifts. The Villagers decide to name the baby Christo, since they see him as a gift to them in the form of a Christ.

So, about three months after the birth of Christ, Mila finds a hot young recluse (Asen Blatechky) to kick it with. He’s Buddhist, but baby Christ doesn’t seem to
care. But you see, Mila had become a little used to being the center of attention in the village, that is until the baby was born, and then, the townspeople go and shower the friggin BABY with gifts, knocking the wind out of Mila’s sails. It made me wonder if that’s how Mother Mary felt. Was Mary pissed when the wisemen gave all the gifts to the baby? Probably. I would be. I’d be all….”dude, you guys blow”.

A brilliant moment in Mila From Mars comes at the end, during a confrontation. It is an explosive finale, but the whole thing is done in complete silence, which is an extremely powerful choice.

I was impressed with this film before I was aware that this is not only
Zornitsa Sophia’s first film, it’s her f**king GRADUATION film for the
National Academy for theatre and film. It certainly doesn’t show. Mila
from Mars has attracted more media attention than any Bulgarian film has in
the past 15 years and it’s almost a no-budget film. Among the ten
international awards it’s won so far, two of them were for best film. Oh
yeah, and if that’s not enough, it also happens to be the official Bulgarian
submission for the Oscars. You just can’t get any better than that, for
your first time out.

Oh, and one other thing. The soundtrack is phenomenal. It is so good in fact
that it made me look up each of the bands and try to get some of their
music. I might have to travel to Sofia to get it, though. As far as I can
tell, none of it is available here. THEREFORE, if this film goes somewhere,
which I think it definitely will, I would love to see a purchasable
soundtrack, which of course would do wonders for these artists. Here are
their names, in case you are as passionate about rare finds as I am. Most
of these guys have websites. Bluba Lu, Chakruk, Vataff Project, Monday
Morning, Milenita, Irina Florin, People from the Ghetto, Sealiah, and
Infinity. For more information: www.milafrommars.com.

For times and dates, log onto: http://www.filmlinc.com/ndnf/index.html

Lincoln Center West 62nd & 65th Streets & Columbus and Amsterdam Avenues

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Joe Maggio’s
Milk and Honey
Opens March 18th
Quad Cinemas

Katsuhiro Otomo's
Steamboy
Opens Nationwide on March 18th

Starring: Anna Paquin, Anne Suzuki, Kari Wahlgren & Manami Konishi

Reviewed by Jeremy Schreiner

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Based on prize winning prose by Wojciech Kuczok

Cast: Wacek Adamczyk (young Wojciech), Jan Frycz (Father), Michal Zebrowski (Old Wojciech), Agnieszka Grochowska (Tania)

Reviewed by: Diedre Kilgore

The Welts is an existential Polish film, which portrays how child abuse can leave scars that may never heal. Becoming entangled in a psychological web of pain, we watch as young Wojciech (Wacek Adamczyk), a boy abused by his father (Jan Frycz), grows up to become a hardened cynical man.

Wojciech deeply wishes he could look up to his father, but eventually becomes so afraid of him he runs away, only to suddenly catch himself many years later acting like the monster he so desperately tried to escape. The father has no desire to be abusive but doesn’t know any other way to enforce discipline on a pre-teen boy. Jan Frycz artfully portrays tenderness, anguish and regret each time he feels the need to discipline young Wojciech. The father tries to show Wojciech he loves him, but it doesn’t outweigh the mental and physical pain Wojciech feels. In addition to beatings by his father, he is also beaten by teachers and emotionally undermined by the Priest. From these experiences, Wojciech learns that adults cannot be trusted, and this is something he brings with him, where years later, we see him much older, and much more powerful (wonderfully portrayed by Michal Zebrowski) as a harder, distrusting and isolated man. His outlook begins to change when he meets Tania (Agnieszka Grochowska), an unrelenting woman who is drawn to the child beneath Wojciech’s tough exterior. Tania fights every step of the way to discover the frightened boy Wojciech has trapped deep down inside of him.

Marcin Koszalka is a marvelous Cinematographer, giving the film strikingly beautiful images amidst emotionally ugly circumstances, beautifully depicting how external façades are used to disguise internal sludge.

The Welts won six awards at the polish film Festival in Gdynia and was the Polish entry for the 2004 Academy Awards.

For times, dates and other information about the Festival, log onto:
http://www.filmlinc.com/ndnf/index.html

Lincoln Center |Broadway from 60th through 66th
Museum of Modern Art |11 West 53rd Street

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Liu Hao's
Two Great Sheep
Lincoln Center’s New Directors New Films

Starring: Sun Yunkun, Jiang Zhikun and Yang Zuojiu
Reviewed by Armistead Johnson

At what point does a bad gift become a burden? Does it start when one first opens it and has to smile, pretending like they like it? Or does it start, as in the case of Uncle Deshan and his wife in Two Great Sheep, when you have to give up your food and shelter to the gift?

Uncle Deshan and his wife find themselves on the receiving end of a seemingly generous gift in Two Great Sheep that make Uncle Deshan and his wife the talk and envy of the entire town. Their benefactors? The government. The gift? Two rare foreign sheep who’s children and wool are going to pull the village out of poverty. The catch? They are the prissiest sheep Uncle Deshan and his wife have ever seen.

The sheep are too cold outside, so they are moved inside the small hut where uncle Deshan and his wife live. On particularly cold nights, the sheep are given Uncle Deshan and his wife’s coats and blankets. When the sheep begin to lose weight, the sheep are given Uncle Deshan and his wife’s food, and when the sheep have digestive problems, Uncle Deshan must take a days quest across the mountains to find grass the sheep will tolerate.

The cinematography of Two Great Sheep is absolutely beautiful, as are the performances and script which is filled with simple language, a clean, clear plot and subtle political overtones.

For times, dates and other information about the Festival, log onto:
http://www.filmlinc.com/ndnf/index.html

Lincoln Center |Broadway from 60th through 66th

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Phillip F. Messina’s
With Friends Like These.

Starring: AdamArkin, David Straithairn, Jon Tenny, Robert Costanzo, Amy Madigan, Laura San Giacomo, Elle MacPherson, Lauren Tom, Beverly D'Angelo, Ashley Peldon, Allison Bertolino, Bill Murray, Frederick Kesten & Martin Scorcese

Reviewed by Armistead Johnson

You know them.

You know exactly who I’m talking about.

The “organized” guys who are so smooth it should be a “crime.” Some are baritones, but some are “Soprano’s.”

They’re brutal and they will slit your throat if it suits their needs. Not to mention stab you in the back with the slightest provocation, and if you think they’re brutal with the public, you should see how their treat their own kind.
Actors. What a menace.

With Friends Like These is a hysterical look inside the life of a bunch of, what I call “where do I know him from” guy’s trying to make it big, but who so far are only “making” the rent by playing generic mob guys, generic cab drivers and generic Italian waiters in every movie Hollywood can crank out.

When Johnny DeMartino (played by Robert Costanzo) gets a “secret” audition for the one and only Martin Scorcese for the part of Al Capone, discretion is his one and only goal. Oh yeah, and nailing the audition. While doing Capone research, one of Johnny’s “where do I know him from” friends finds out about the audition and from then on, well, the back stabbing goes into full gallop as the group of friends all scammer around town getting their own Capone auditions, all the while trying to sabotage their “friends” along the way.

The cast includes Bill Murray, Amy Madigan, Martin Scorcese, Laura San Giacomo and Elle Macpherson to name a few, but in my opinion Beverly D’Angelo steals the movie playing a “I am so important, don’t you know who I am, I don’t have time for you because of my demanding schedule,” casting director.

With Friends Like These is a wet-your-pants-laughing-so-hard movie that everyone… actors, writers… the general public should go to see if they are looking to have a good time at the movies.

With Friends Like These opened on February 25th at City Cinema’s Village East Ciname, Village East, 181 2nd Ave, New York, NY 10003. Call 212-529-6799 for tkts and show times. www.withfriendslikethese.net is currently under construction.