Notable New Releases
THE FLIGHT OF THE RED BALLOON (Seville) There’s a breeziness to Hou Hsiao-Hsien’s latest that led some to dismiss it as a trifle, but this homage to Albert Lamorisse’s beloved 1956 short The Red Balloon — starring Juliette Binoche in an uncharacteristically unhinged turn as a Parisian puppeteer struggling to locate her working-single-mom rhythm — has its hidden depths. The Chinese nanny Binoche hires to look after her son is also a student filmmaker, and her experiences as an outsider with a camera prove suggestive when considered in light of Hou’s own artistic adventure beyond Taiwan. Extras: none.
THE STRANGERS (Universal) Essentially Funny Games with the fourth wall intact, Bryan Bertino’s pared-down, ’70s-inflected thriller about a couple whose country house excursion goes from bad (a rejected marriage proposal) to worse (the appearances of masked homicidal maniacs) is actually a more effective deconstruction tool than Michael Haneke’s exercise in shock-corridor pedagogy. By eliding the spastic self-reflexivity of so many post-Scream shockers, The Strangers achieves a certain irony-deficient integrity. By taking its grim exploitation-flick scenario all the way to its logical and deeply unsatisfying conclusion, it manages the difficult trick of frustrating and fulfilling its audience’s competing — and completely incompatible — desires. Not a “likeable” film, perhaps, but an accomplished piece of work. Extras: deleted scenes, “The Elements of Terror” featurette.
Also This Week
THE INCREDIBLE HULK (3-DISC SPECIAL EDITION) (Universal) Edward Norton broods unpersuasively as Bruce Banner in this hasty reboot of the Hulk franchise. Torontonians can make their own fun by counting the local landmarks in the final battle scene. Extras: deleted scenes, alternate opening, commentary, making-of, featurettes.
THE GO-GETTER (Peace Arch) Martin Hynes’ road movie about a car thief (Lou Taylor Pucci) and the mysterious woman (Zooey Deschanel) who keeps calling him on his cross-country adventure is several shades too cute but beautifully directed nevertheless. Any movie that stops for an extended, dead-on Godard vamp gets the benefit of the doubt. Extras: none.
THE STONE ANGEL (Alliance) Ellen Burstyn and Christine Horne match up nicely as the different incarnations of prairie heroine Hagar Shipley in this dogged adaptation of Margaret Laurence’s lit-syllabus mainstay. Extras: none.
Out Oct 28
Journey to the Center of the Earth (3-D), Kit Kittredge: An American Girl, Hell Ride and Zombie Strippers (Unrated Special Edition), starring Jenna Jameson and Robert Englund and directed by Academy Award winner Sir Richard Attenborough.