Most of you probably don’t know what an Old Maid is in the theater business. It is an industry term used for the inevitable few popcorn seeds that do not pop while the batch is cooking. Because most people do not like to chew on popcorn seeds, in the popcorn bin their is a small grate designed to run the popcorn over so the Old Maids may fall below and not disturb their more perfectly popped brethren, soon to be forgotten.

I must admit the newest contest is a bit of a sham. Not in that you won’t win April Fool’s Day, which you will. Or that the movie is terrible, which it is. But in that I pretty much already have a title for this Friday feature I am starting up. Old Maids seems like the perfect term to apply to the films that I recommend each Friday, as they tend to be lesser known films that simply haven’t had quite enough time to “pop” in the public eye. So what do I spy in the bin this week?

Well the new releases this week are particularly bleak, in that their is only one major release, and the independent releases are relatively bleak films. Gus Van Sant returns to the big screen with Paranoid Park, a film about a kid who accidentally gets involved in the death of a security guard at his local skating park, and then must try and find a way to cover it up.

Finding a way to slide even deeper along the depression scale is Snow Angels, the new film by acclaimed Indie director David Gordon Green starring Sam Rockwell and Kate Beckinsale. It is a melodramatic slice of life film that centers around the destructive home life’s of two separate families.

On the DVD release side this Tuesday once again isn’t exactly populated with winners. The Mist is the only major studio release, but there are a couple of interesting Indie releases. First is the suicide love story Wristcutters: A Love Story. Starring Patrick Fugit, Shannyn Sossamon, Tom Waits, Will Arnett and a host of others it is an odd romantic comedy set in Purgatory. I wrote a review on it earlier in the year and enjoyed it quite a bit, though it won’t be everyone’s cup of tea.

The other film that interests me is the French horror film Ils, retitled Them for the English DVD release. If you were one of the lucky few who saw Doomsday last weekend you were treated to the trailer of the inevitable crappy remake entitled The Strangers, so please go pick up the original and don’t watch some flaccid American version in theaters later this summer.

As always trailers after the break. Enjoy.

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Like many people I have had someone close to me commit suicide. It was difficult for me to understand why they did it, as well as wonder if I could have done anything to prevent it. For a time it left me bitter and jaded while reducing suicide to a subject that was bound to aggravate me. But as the years have passed my attitude and feelings towards it have changed. But in spite of this suicide is still one of those subjects that are nigh impossible to joke about, especially in movies. The only ones I can think of that it have pulled it off with any grace are Better Off Dead, Heathers, and Groundhog Day. So it was with trepidation that I went to see the suicide satire Wristcutters: A Love Story, knowing full well I could be walking into a complete disaster.

Zia (Patrick Fugit) is a very unhappy man. Having recently been dumped by his girlfriend Desiree (Leslie Bibb), he commits suicide in the hopes it will end his pain. Upon waking he discovers he was successful in his efforts to end his life, only to find out he now resides in a world no different from his previous one. Not long after he receives word that Desiree has also committed suicide, and taking it as a sign he enlists his roommate Eugene (Shea Whigham), and an odd hitchhiker (Shannyn Sossamon) who insists she is here on accident, in helping him find the love of his after life. (more…)