The Screening Room

The lineup at the festival today seems pretty music heavy. Among the options:
Glass: A Portrait of Philip in Twelve Parts, a documentary about the composer Philip Glass. It screens at 4:30 p.m. at the Angelika
Bowling For Soup: Live And Very Attractive, a doc about the locally based band. It shows at 7:15 p.m. at the Angelika
And topping it all off is Joy Division, a look at the influential Manchester band that previously screened to warm reception at the Toronto Film Festival. It shows at 9:45 p.m. at the Angelika.
And if all that weren't enough, Paul Oakenfold will attend the red carpet festivities tonight at 6 p.m. at the Magnolia Theatre. He's here in support of Vexille, an anime movie that he scored that will play free on the huge outdoor screens at Victory Park tonight at 7. Here's hoping the skies stay clear.

Just hung out with Alex Gibney, who has become a major stud in the documentary world. His Taxi to the Dark Side won the doc Oscar this year, and his new film, Gonzo: The Life and Work of Hunter S. Thompson, plays AFI Dallas at 7:30 tonight and 12:15 Saturday at the Magnolia.

Among the surprising interview subjects in the film is Pat Buchanan, a Nixon man whom Thompson met covering politics for Rolling Stone (read Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail, if you haven't). Gibney told me Buchanan originally declined to participate in the film, but changed his mind when the filmmaker reminded him that the great Gonzo's work spoke to folks of all political stripes and ideologies. (Apparently Thompson and Buchanan were known to knock back a beer or ten together).

Gonzo will be released by Marc Cuban and Todd Wagner's HDNet Films later this year.

Want to snap some pictures of the famous folks dropping into town this weekend? Here's a guide to the gawking:
Saturday night's red carpet lineup is highlighted by Mischa Barton, who will be here for her film Assassination of a High School President. You might also recognize Ms. Barton's co-star, Reece Thompson, who starred in the acclaimed Rocket Science from last year. It all goes down at 6 p.m. at the Magnolia Theatre in the West Village.
Then on Sunday, one of the festival's big gets, Public Enemy frontman Chuck D, will walk the red carpet in support the documentary Public Enemy: Welcome to the Terrordome. That event is at the Angelika Film Center at Mockingbird Station beginning at 6 p.m. Bring those cellphone camera.

Read the reviews, get showtimes and grade the films by clicking below. Or comment here to share your own thoughts on this week's new releases.

Superhero Movie wasn't screened in advance for critics. Did you see it? What did you think?

• Stop-Loss (B+)
• Run Fat Boy Run (B+)
• 21 (D)
• Superhero Movie

Watch the Trailers

Thursday night at the Majestic Theatre, Helen Hunt screened her directorial debut, Then She Found Me, as the festival's opening night movie. But her fellow Star Award recipient, Mickey Rooney, was really the one who held the spotlight the most.
The 87-year-old legend took the stage and told stories about his life and career in showbiz. And then he told some more. And then a few more after that. If you've ever listened to your grandpa talk about the olden days, it was kind of like that.
Which is not to say it wasn't both entertaining and heartfelt.

You might have seen the nasty little billboards popping up around town. The ones that say, "My mom always hated you Sarah Marshall" or "You do look fat in those jeans, Sarah Marshall."
And you've probably wondered, "Who is this jerk spending all of this money, and what does he have against Sarah Marshall?"
You'll find the answers to those questions in the upcoming comedy Forgetting Sarah Marshall, which plays at the AFI Dallas film festival on April 6 before opening in wide release on April 18.

AFI Dallas is ready to roll through April 6 and we'll be all over it like Jerry Jones on Darren McFadden. Peep our preview of the many small town Texas films on display here. Stevie Becker will be covering the opening night festivities at guidelive.com (I'll be reviewing Chris Rock. Very stoked). Check The Screening Room every day for news, reviews and all the AFI you can handle.

LOS ANGELES — The truth about The X-Files sequel — some of it, anyway — is now out there.

The X-Files creator Chris Carter, writer Frank Spotnitz and other crew members gathered Wednesday to discuss the TV series — and declassify some information about the upcoming film.

Read more from the Associated Press.

/film offers links to two bootleg trailers

It's time for round two of the AFI Dallas International Film Festival, and I have to admit I'm pretty excited about this year's offerings. What I have seen of the films (Forgetting Sarah Marshall, the opening night Then She Found Me) I liked very well, and it looks like there are other promising titles on the slate. I'm looking forward to getting a look at Tulia, Texas and Crawford, two documentaries that Chris Vognar will be profiling in a story running in Thursday's paper (on 1A, God willing). And it also looks like some pretty high-profile guests will be hitting our fair burg, including Helen Hunt, Mickey Rooney, Charlize Theron, Robert De Niro, Woody Harrelson and others. If you want to plan your festival going, head over to the AFI Dallas Web site to make a run through their schedule.

The winner and still champion
Horton Hears a Who! decided to play two, topping the box office for a second weekend with $24.6 million. Right on its tale was the latest from Tyler Perry, Meet the Browns, which opened impressively at $20 million. That marks the first time since mid-January that two films earned $20 million or more in the same weekend.

The appropriately named Movie Food publishes recipes for dishes that match the theme of a particular movie, a cool idea for your next movie night.

So, for Ratatouille, for example, the site tells you how to prepare the dish that melted Ego's icy heart.

(Photo: Movie Food)

There are only a handful of recipes so far, but the "Upcoming Dishes" list looks promising.

I might skip the spaghetti the next time I'm watching Alien, though.
View image

In case any cine-Potterheads missed the news, Warner Bros. and producer David Heyman have announced that the movie version of the seventh and final Harry Potter book, Deathly Hallows, will be split into a two-part film release.

DH1 is set for November 2010 and DH2 for May 2011. David Yates, director of both Order of the Phoenix and the now-in-production Half-Blood Prince, will helm Deathly Hallows as well.

Texas-born screenwriter Steve Kloves tells the Baltimore Sun that he's on board with the plan: "As for Deathly Hallows, I intuited -- almost from the first moments I began reading it and certainly once I'd finished -- that to realize the story in a single film was going to be a tall order."

Chris Cooper, who can be seen in the new film Married Life, is a Kansas City native. But his people come from Texas. "I'm the only one that's not from Texas, going back generation to generation on both sides of my family," he told me recently.

It seems his great-great grandfather once had a chance to get in on the ground floor of a fledgling city called Dallas. But it didn't quite work out.

There's a long weekend ahead. Are you heading to the multiplex? Read the reviews, get showtimes and grade the films by clicking below. Or comment below to share your own thoughts on this week's new releases.

Neither Shutter or Meet the Browns screened in advance for critics. Did you see either one? What did you think?

• Drillbit Taylor (B-)
• CJ7 (B+)
• Married Life (B)
• Diva (B)
• Under the Same Moon (B)
• Meet the Browns
• Shutter

If you were one of the unfortunate souls who invested in Toshiba's now-defunct HD-DVD high definition disc format -- and you bought your player from Best Buy -- you can now get a consolation prize in the form of a $50 gift certificate.

Read all about it at our tech blog.

If you were planning your spring schedule around the USA Film Festival - hey, it's possible - please take note: the dates have been changed from April 24-May 1 to April 21-27. Maybe they decided they wanted to be closer to AFI-Dallas (which runs March 27-April 6), or at least steal some thunder with an announcment. Maybe they just wanted to avoid any conflict with potential May Day celebrations. In any case, them's the new dates.

Javier Bardem starred in one of 2007's best films (No Country for Old Men) and one of its worst. Mr. Bardem's Love in the Time of Cholera got no love at the box office, disappearing quickly from multiplexes after its November 2007 release. To see it is to know why.

Fans of films gone hilariously awry (you know who you are) won't want to miss this one, which lands on DVD today. Based on Nobel Prize winner Gabriel Garcia Marquez's epic novel, Love tells the story of Florentino and Fermina, whose attraction for each other goes unrequited for decades.

The book is tragic, romantic, poetic and moving. The movie is a showcase for stiff acting, bad makeup jobs, funny fashion choices (authentic though they may be) and many scenes to snicker over. Enjoy! Enjoy!

Trunk show
Dr. Seuss' Horton Hears a Who! stomped out the competition in its opening weekend, earning $45 million to become the biggest opener thus far in 2008. Overall, the weekend was up 8.5 percent over the same weekend in 2007, the first "up" weekend in four weeks.

As promised, here's a little more on my Martin Scorsese interview Saturday. We talked mostly about his new Stones movie, Shine a Light, which opens April 4. If you're a fan of Scorsese's music flicks, this one is more of a Last Waltz-style concert movie than a No Direction Home study of Dylan.

Near the end of the interview I told him I was a fan of his doc A Personal Journey With Martin Scorsese Through American Movies. He immediately lamented that his press schedule was causing him to miss a rep screening of Bigger Than Life, a Nicholas Ray/James Mason film that was playing up the street in New York and is featured in Personal Journey. Classic Scorsese: He's rather be watching a movie - even one that he's seen a million times - than doing anything else. Except, possibly, making a movie.

We'll have much more Marty as his film's opening date approaches.

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So tomorrow afternoon I'm supposed to chat with one Martin Scorsese on the phone. To get an idea of where this rates on my "giggling like a schoolgirl" meter, picture Bob Sturm hanging out with Brett Favre. The only other time I've had idol-worship nervousness was before I talked to Clint. Pray for me.

His Martyness' new movie, the Rolling Stones doc Shine a Light, opens April 4.

So I have made it back to my safe Dallas cave (time of journey from Austin: 2 hours, 45 minutes. Speed Racer, baby). Saw lots of good stuff. What were my top five SX movies, you ask? Oh you didn't ask. Too bad. Here they are.

1. Gonzo - I dug Alex Gibney's style before he won the documentary Oscar for Taxi to the Dark Side. This doc on Hunter S.Thompson captures the gonzo spirit of the man and his times without sugarcoating either.

2. The Visitor - Richard Jenkins has long been the best actor you've never heard of. His role here as an emotionally stifled econ professor coming out of his shell in the presence of a Syrian immigrant is a joy to behold.

3. Harold and Kumar Escape From Guantanamo Bay - Like the first one, but more political. And Neil Patrick Harris takes 'shrooms. Our little Doogie.

4. Mongol - Epic portrait of the young Genghis Khan that I didn't get to see all of because the 30 minute delay caused by the theater staff putting the wrong lens on the projector and I had to go to my next interview. But I liked the 3/4 that I watched.

5. Crawford and Tulia, Texas -Two docs about small Texas towns, made by outsiders who take nothing for granted.

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I've got a post up over at our technology blog about a new feature on a handful of high definition Blu-ray movies that lets you legally and easily rip a copy of the movie to your computer's hard drive or to your portable video player (such as the iPhone).

It's a capability that the studios were talking about before either Blu-ray or HD-DVD hit the market, and I have to admit I was skeptical they'd ever actually implement it.

So kudos to Fox and Lionsgate for taking baby steps in this consumer-friendly direction, and let's hope this is just the beginning of a trend.

Kickin' it really old school
The prehistoric epic 10,000 B.C. didn't come close to matching the firepower of its March 2007 predecessor, 300, but it has plenty to be proud of. It easily won the weekend with $35.9 million and could have a solid second week as much of its potential audience is on spring break this week.

AFI Dallas anounced today that local act Polyphonic Spree will play the festival's closing night party on April 5 at the House of Blues. Anyone with a premiere pass to the festival is invited to the event. The festival kicks off its run on Thursday, March 27.

Elvis Mitchell has been a film critic (most recently for The New York Times), a brodcaster (currently as host of the KCRW film show The Treatment) and a magazine editor (Interview). Now, with The Black List, he can add "filmmaker" to his resume.