FILM OPENS FRIDAY, DECEMBER 9th FROM STRAND RELEASING The Women on the 6th Floor Opening Friday 12/9 at: UA Devargas Center 6  562 N. Guadalupe  505-988-1110 Trailer – http://trailers.apple.com/trailers/independent/thewomenonthe6thfloor/ Paris, 1960. Jean-Louis (Fabrice Luchini, Potiche) lives a bourgeois existence absorbed in his work, cohabitating peacefully with his neurotic socialite wife Suzanne (Sandrine Kiberlain, Mademoiselle Chambon) while their children [...]

At the risk of making light of isolation and depression, the audience of director Terence Davies’ “A Deep Blue Sea” may need a pocket guide and a second viewing to gain perspective on the film.  A portfolio of symbolism to look for, themes to explore and questions to ask along the way could make for [...]

“Monsieur Lazhar,” Canada’s official entry for the 2011 Best Foreign Film Oscar, concerns an Algerian immigrant that finds work in Montreal standing in for an elementary school teacher who recently committed suicide. It sounds straightforward enough, but nothing is as it appears on the surface–and yet the story does not play out like a mystery [...]

“Sleeping Beauty,” which played in a discreet 9:30 slot on Saturday night at the 12th Annual Santa Fe Film Festival, has already gained a reputation for being erotic, insipid, brave, disappointing, groundbreaking, regressive and a host of other contradictions. It’s no wonder. A young woman consents to being drugged for the purpose of complete submission [...]

“A Useful Life” by Federico Vieroj is a 67 minute mini-feature that focuses on a major turning point in the life of Jorge, the curator of a small art house cinema in Montevideo, Uruguay. Vieroj’s movie is about the fate of film in a digital world and an adoring ode to the days before the [...]

The packed audience at the Screen today on the last day of the Santa Fe Film Festival were all wondering if Ralph Fiennes’ directorial debut, a modern adaptation of Shakespeare’s “Coriolanus”, would give us both a great story and a great film. A third of the way into it I wrote in my notebook in [...]

In the slow-paced, detail-obsessive, character-rich, Oscar-contender from Turkey at the Santa Fe Film Festival, the story snakes around the characters like the creek through the hills and slopes, occasionally seen, sometimes only heard, but always a part of the landscape. Released at the New York Film Festival earlier this month, “”Once Upon A Time in [...]

You’ve heard that “Battlefield Heroes” is like a Korean Monty Python film about the escapades of war in the 7th century with slapstick comedy, sight gags and silly kings. After seeing it screened at the Santa Fe Film Festival tonight, I would agree with that analogy with a few caveats: this film has better production [...]

When the average American thinks of a symbol of freedom, they might not think of a wild horse, mane flying, galloping across a wide open plain. However, that iconic symbol is in danger of being forever lost to storytelling legend. Following recent acclaimed screenings in Washington, DC and the Montana International Wildlife Film Festival, “Wild [...]

SPOTLIGHT ON NEW MEXICO FILMMAKERS – SHORTS LOBSTER Is there a heaven for crustaceans? Could the cuisine on your stove top have attained a higher spiritual station? Relax, sit back and discover what one young couple learns. An age-old controversy is resolved after relational tensions come to a boil over whether the main course in [...]