It isn’t often that I get to force Anna to watch something she has no interest in. Typically I have to find some way of piquing her interest or there simply is no way she will go. Take Midnight Meat Train, for example. While she isn’t averse to gore or horror films by any means, trying to talk her into driving 20 minutes to one of the worst areas of town to watch a film that might be terrible wasn’t an easy task. But after informing her on the treatment the film was receiving from Lionsgate, she became interested enough to see if the movie really deserved to be stashed away in the far reaches of the metro area. Of course after watching it we both realized why the film isn’t getting a wide release, but you have to give her credit for making the effort. (more…)

Quick and easy entry this week as my choices are pretty close to universally awful. The obvious film to see this weekend is American Teen. This is an outstanding documentary on a group of Indiana High School seniors living out their last year of High School. It is a great little film that truly deserves a huge following. But being an Indie documentary it is probably bound to live in obscurity.

The other interesting film to watch is Midnight Meat Train, if you can find it. Suffering through multiple release delays and a change in directors (controversial Japanese director Ryuhei Kitamura is now in charge) the film was slated for a direct-to-dvd release but is now getting some rather odd treatment by Lionsgate. They have now chosen to have a very small release for the film, 100 screens nationwide, and all of them will be on the secondary market. Meaning you will have to find your local dollar theater and hope they have it, because the odds of the film lasting more then a week are incredibly slim. Is the movie any good? Who knows? But the studio seems terrified of it so that has to account for something, right?

As for DVD releases, The Counterfeiters, the Oscar winner for Best Foreign Language film finally gets a release. While not the best foreign film of last year, it is still a very good movie that is easily worth a rental. Which is more then I can say for Nim’s Island.

As always trailers are after the break! (more…)