RiverRun Film Reviews

Most independent films shown at RiverRun have not been rated by the Motion Picture Association of America. For those films not rated by MPAA, RiverRun organizers have devised their own rating system. Here it is:

MT Mature -- Significant mature content.

TN Teen+ -- May have some mature content.

FM Family Friendly -- Suitable for children as young as 8-12.

You are still advised to use your best judgment when taking younger folk to the movies.

Reviewers for relish used a four-star scoring system. Here's what the stars mean.

-- one of the best I've ever seen

-- excellent

-- very good

-- good

-- so-so/average

-- not so hot

-- awful

We were able to review all but five films in the festival. Here they are in alphabetical order.

1929, , 104 minutes. Rated TN. Money & Power showcase. Showing: 12:30 p.m. April 18, Gold; 7:30 p.m. April 23, 8:30 p.m. April 24, Babcock.

William Karel's 1929 weaves a plethora of black-and-white footage together with talking-head-style interviews with historians and economists, including Nobel winner Joseph Stiglitz, who discuss the causes and effects of the 1929 stock-market crash. Interesting segments focus on how Europe was affected, and the memories of one expert who was a child during the Great Depression. Although it doesn't make the point explicitly, the parallels between what happened then and in the recent economic downturn are clear.

A frustrating aspect of the film is that it's not always clear which images are from the time period. Some of the black-and-white footage is from the 1920s and '30s; some obviously isn't; and with some, it's impossible to tell. Newspaper headlines from the era are a documentary staple. But what is a viewer to make of it when one of the headlines -- "Stock Market Invincible / ‘Buy, buy, buy!' experts advise" -- comes from the modern-era spoof newspaper The Onion with no indication that it isn't a real headline? -- Julie Harris

Amores Perros, . 154 minutes. Rated R. Spotlight on Mexican Cinema. In Spanish with English subtitles. 3 p.m. April 24, Babcock.

A scene from Amores Perros, part of the Spotlight on Mexican Cinema sidebar.
(photo courtesy of RiverRun)

Three diverse storylines are linked by an automobile accident in this Oscar-nominated 2000 drama set in Mexico City by director Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu.

In his 2001 review of the film, Roger Ebert wrote that the film "is heavy on story -- too heavy, some will say -- and rich with character and atmosphere. It is the work of a born filmmaker, and you can sense Gonzalez Inarritu's passion as he plunges into melodrama, coincidence, sensation and violence." -- relish staff

Animated Shorts, , 120 Minutes. Rated MT. Showing 4 p.m. April 22, Main; 4 p.m. April 23, Gold; noon April 24, Main.

There are several strong contenders this year in the animated shorts.

One of the strongest is Logorama, this year's Oscar winner for short animated film. It has about 3,000 well-known commercial logos and such product characters as the Jolly Green Giant and Mr. Clean. It also features Ronald McDonald as you've never seen him before. This one gets the explicit language warning label.

Fard, a French short, has great animation and reminded me of an animated 21st century episode of The Twilight Zone.

One of the shorts was based on a recording from National Public Radio's StoryCorps. In Q&A Joshua, a boy with Asperger's Syndrome, and his mother talk about their relationship and his feelings about his sister.

VS, a Canadian short, has a boxer seeing family members in the audience as his opponent pummels him. The worse the beating the more disappointed they become and disappear.

Overall the animation is very good and there are enough different styles of films to please all tastes. -- Melissa Hall

Bassidji, , 114 minutes. Documentary Features. Rated MT. Showing: 7:30 p.m. April 16, 5 p.m. April 17, Gold; 8 p.m. April 18, Babcock.

Director Mehran Tamadon takes us on an absorbing trip into the world of the Bassidji, a militia group in Iran that reveres the memory of the Ayatollah Khomeini, father of the Iranian revolution. Many of the Bassidji gave their lives sacrificially on the front line during the 1980 war between Iraq and Iran, and are revered as martyrs. Starting from an outdoor shrine where pilgrims pay homage, Tamadon takes us evermore deeply into the culture and fabric of the Bassidji life. Tamadon is a secular Iranian who has lived in France since 1984. He gradually inserts himself into the documentary to challenge and probe the viewpoints of the Bassidji, but he mostly allows them to simply explain their lives and motivations. Perhaps it is asking more than would be humanly possible, but this would have been a better film if Tamadon had confronted the smiling and friendly Bassidji about their reputation for violence -- human rights organizations have complained of their political beatings and killings. It's downright creepy when one of the Bassidji playfully tells the director, "I shoot you," and when another laughingly suggests that the director could be convinced of the rightness of the Bassidji cause off-camera by using "other methods to convince you." -- Wesley Young

Best Worst Movie, . 93 minutes. Rated MT, contains profanity. Late Night. Showing: 8:30 p.m. April 16, Babcock; 7:30 p.m. April 17, Babcock; 9:30 p.m. April 23, Main.

Characters in Best Worst Movie, being shown in the Late Night series of films.
(photo courtesy of RiverRun)

If you're not a fan of Troll 2, you might be after you watch this documentary. Or at least, you may appreciate the film's scruffy charm. Best Worst Movie looks at the 1990 flop, with director Michael Stephenson -- who played the lead in Troll 2 as a child actor -- revisiting cast members and examining the cult following the show has earned in recent years.

And what a following it is, with audiences packing theaters to watch the movie, sharing ragged videotapes and DVDs, and holding "Troll 2 parties" where they watch the film, re-enact favorite scenes and laugh at the film's ineptitude. The fans include members of the Upright Citizens Brigade improv comedy troupe, soldiers stationed in Iraq, and many more.

The cast members react with amused bewilderment to the mania that has built around their little film. Stephenson recounts how disappointed he was when he finally got to see the movie, and co-star George Hardy, now a genial dentist, talks about the calls he gets from friends when they see him on late-night repeats.

Sure, their movie is bad (and it's really bad; see the review elsewhere in this lineup), but the fans aren't just jaded hipsters looking for a movie to mock; as one of them describes it, the movie is mesmerizing, like watching an attempt by space aliens to make a human movie and not quite getting it right. Wisely, since Best Worst Movie will whet viewers' appetites, RiverRun is also screening Troll 2 itself, but only once. -- Tim Clodfelter

Casino Jack and the United States of Money, , 120 minutes. Rated MT. Money & Power showcase. Showing: 6 p.m. April 18, Gold; 6 p.m. April 20, Main; 7:30 p.m. April 23, Aperture Cinema.

The story of the rise and fall of infamous Washington lobbyist Jack Abramoff often plays like a tragic mob tale in Alex Gibney's documentary Casino Jack and the United States of Money, replete with backroom deals, tough-guy talk and murder.

It's a classic tale of the corrupting influence of money and power and how those elected to serve the people ended up serving their own interests.

With interviews with many of the major players in the scandal, Gibney paints a picture of Washington as a place where Congressmen's votes are for sale to the highest bidder. And at the center of it all was Abramoff, a Godfather-like figure with connections far and wide.

Gibney traces Abramoff's beginnings as the leader of the College Republicans to his rise as one of the most powerful lobbyists in Washington until his precipitous fall. In 2006, he pled guilty to fraud, tax evasion and conspiracy to bribe public officials after allegations surfaced that he had ripped off American Indian tribes his firm had represented. The scandal ensnared Rep. Tom Delay (R-Tex.) who resigned from his position as House Majority Leader and led another Congressman, Rep. Bob Ney (R-Ohio), to spend time in prison.

Gibney's film is a rollicking, fast-paced ride into the dark side of American politics, where amoral men work the system to enrich themselves. -- Michael Hewlett

Climate Refugees, . 95 minutes. Rated TN. Green Scene. Showing: 6:30 p.m. April 17, Aperture Cinema; 7 p.m. April 22, Main; 9 p.m. April 23, Gold; 1:30 p.m. April 25, Aperture Cinema.

The world is on the brink of disaster -- threatened not by terrorism or war, but by rising ocean levels and wildly swinging weather patterns. The result: Entire populations are fleeing their homelands for nearby countries and continents, leading to overpopulation, poverty, disease, and questions about society and politics that already have gone unanswered for decades.

Sound paranoid? It has already happened, the makers of Climate Refugees point out, even here in the United States: Many New Orleans residents who left the city before and after Hurricane Katrina still have not returned, choosing instead to restart their lives in other cities.

Writer-producer-director Michael Nash and the rest of the crew traveled around the planet, from massive China, where access to water is prompting questions about human rights, to tiny Tuvalu, widely accepted as the first country that could disappear into the sea. They visit climate refugees in Bangladesh and interview prominent climatologists, activists and politicians in an attempt to explain a complex issue in a movie-length format.

The film sometimes feels alarmist, particularly when computer-generated graphics fill the screen with bold red arrows reaching across the globe, illustrating climate refugees' flight as if they were armies in the Risk! board game. But it is a solid primer on the very human results of climate change, and an even better explanation of how changing temperatures and weather will affect all people, not just those who live near the beach. -- Laura Graff

Convention, . 95 minutes. Rated TN. Special Screening. Showing: 7 p.m. April 18, Main; 5:30 p.m. April 19, 7:30 p.m. April 20, Aperture Cinema.

Convention is a fascinating documentary that captures the drama of the 2008 Democratic National Convention in Denver.

But none of it involves nominee Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, his feisty challenger.

Indeed, these two larger-than-life characters are bit players in this behind-the-scenes look at the historic convention.

We watch the convention unfold through the eyes of the mayor's staff, a rookie political reporter with the Denver Post and a pair of veteran protesters who seem hell-bent on re-creating the revolutionary vibe of 1968.

Director A.J. Schnack seamlessly weaves these threads to create a uniquely American tale of reporters hustling to get the story, protestors exercising their right to assemble and local bureaucrats busting their tails for the greater good. -- Lisa O'Donnell

Cooking History, , 88 minutes. Rated MT. Documentary Feature. In multiple languages, subtitled in English. Showing: 10 a.m. April 18, Gold, 5:30 p.m. April 23 at Babcock and 10:30 p.m. April 24 at Babcock.

Cooking History is in the Documentary Feature competition at RiverRun.
(photo courtesy of RiverRun)

Slovakian writer and director Peter Kerekes presents a unique set of war stories provided by cooks in a handful of 20th century conflicts in Russia, Algeria, the Balkans and elsewhere. At turns playful and poignant, this film mixes interviews, food preparation and sometimes bizarre staging as it drills home its point that, as one veteran says, "without food, there is no war." Odd, staged scenes, such as a woman's body used as a cold buffet table, will strike some as silly. And graphic images of human and animal killings may offend some people. More interesting and powerful are bits of personal recollection and revelation. A Jew announces that he still hates Germans before telling how he poisoned the bread of 300 SS soldiers in an American prison camp. A Croat who served in the Yugoslav army explains his resentment of how the army's cookbook was written in Serbian for Serbs. The sly humor works against the serious message at times, but overall Kerekes has produced a provocative argument for cooking as a metaphor for battle strategy. -- Michael Hastings

Documentary Shorts 1, . 98 minutes. Rated MT. Showing at 2 p.m. April 17, Aperture; 5 p.m. April 23, Aperture; 2 p.m. April 24, Gold; 11:30 a.m. April 25, Aperture.

Perhaps the most compelling among the documentaries in this impressive collection is A Song For Ourselves, an inspiring and ultimately heart wrenching look at the life and death of Chris Iijima, an Asian-American activist and musician who spoke out against racism and injustice in the 1970s, while his country was at war in Vietnam. The 35-minute film intertwines stories of his efforts for social justice -- as both a protester and a folk singer who, in one segment, is introduced by John Lennon -- with his family life as a loving husband and father of two.

Also noteworthy are such documentary shorts as Mike, a student film from the UNC School of the Arts directed by Joe Cornelius, about a local youth who refuses to let Down Syndrome come between himself and a normal life; Presidio Modelo, a poetic, eerie look at a legendary Cuban prison; and two fascinating Scottish shorts, The Shutdown, about a tragic accident at a petrochemical plant, and Pollphail, which looks at the history of a Scottish ghost town. -- Tim Clodfelter

Documentary Shorts 2, . 103 minutes. Rated MT. Showing: 5:30 p.m. April 22, 1:30 p.m. April 23, 7 p.m. April 24, Gold; 11 a.m. April 25, Babcock.

The joy in shorts is their length. Good stories become better, little gems cut and polished. In this batch of six documentary shorts, a gruff woman counts religious pilgrims in Spain; Indians and Pakistanis gather each evening at the only checkpoint on the countries' border; a boy from Uganda laments that he can't read or write; and Woman Rebel, the story of Nepalese women who find independence and equality in a rebel army.

My favorites? Trash-Out, about people who clean up foreclosed houses and Doppelganger, a refreshingly funny look at two men who share a name. Oscar de Julian grows up thinking no one in the world has his name. He's no Michael Smith. He's unique. Ah, enter Google. Turns out there's another Oscar de Julian, a Colombian who makes baroque sculptures with dead people's ashes. -- Laura Giovanelli

Dogtooth, , 94 minutes. Rated MT. Narrative Feature, Greek with subtitles.

Showing: 8 p.m. April 20, 9:30 p.m. April 22, 9 p.m. April 24, Aperture Cinema.

Dogtooth, an entry in the Narrative Feature competition, won the Un Certain award at the 2009 Cannes Festival.
(photo courtesy of RiverRun)

Dogtooth is a strange, but fascinating little film. Three unnamed 20-something siblings -- two girls and a boy -- live a cloistered life behind of the towering wooden walls of their home/fortress.

They play together, eat together and, by the end of the movie, do much more together. (Think Flowers in the Attic with toned and tanned "kids.") Their only contact with the outside comes through a series of bizarre cassette tapes and visits from Christina, a security guard brought in to "visit" the boy. The siblings' world is dominated by their mother and father, who mete out a complicated set of rewards and increasingly violent punishments. Much is left unexplained, including why the parents resort to such cruelty. By the uncomfortable dance scene, you're almost rooting for the weird parents. By the "dogtooth" scene, you'll be wishing for closure. And it comes -- literally. As uncomfortable as most of the film is, with its odd shots, odd action and even odder situations, it is hard to look away. And a warning to cat-lovers, beware the kitty. -- Jeri Young

El Lugar Sin Limites, Not reviewed. 110 minutes. Unrated. Spotlight on Mexican Cinema. In Spanish with English Subtitles. 2:30 p.m. April 18, Babcock.

An elderly transvestite and his daughter run a brothel in this 1978 drama based on the acclaimed novel by author Jose Donoso, which was acclaimed for its frank depiction of prostitution, oppression of gays and violence.

The End of the Line, . 85 minutes. Rated TN. Green Scene. Showing: 4 p.m. April 22 and 25, 1 p.m. April 24, Aperture Cinema.

This compelling documentary explores how humans' unrestrained appetite for fish, along with greed and deadly efficient technology are emptying the oceans of life. Based on a book by journalist Charles Clover, it interviews scientists who discovered that fish populations are in free-fall as giant factory-style fishing boats set enough line each year to circle the globe 550 times, and trawlers with nets large enough to hold more than a dozen 747 airplanes scrape the seafloor bare as they catch up everything in their path. Things are so bad that the fisheries may be utterly depleted by 2048.

After making its frightening case, End of the Line offers possible solutions and hope: World governments can cooperate in enforcing reasonable limits on the numbers of fish caught and in setting aside marine reserves where fish can recover; businesses can adopt responsible practices, such as refusing to sell fish from endangered species; and consumers can refuse to buy unsustainably caught fish. -- Julie Harris

The Extra Man, , 108 minutes. Rated MT. Narrative Feature, not in competition. Showing: 7 p.m. April 15, Stevens Center; 10:30 a.m. April 18, Main; 8:30 p.m. April 19, Aperture Cinema.

Misfits abound in The Extra Man, an odd, but enjoyable comedy with an all-star pedigree.

First we meet Louis (Paul Dano), a cross-dressing teacher who is caught admiring himself in a bra at school, gets fired, and decides to move to New York to become a writer. Unable to get his penchant for lingerie under control, Louis occasionally escapes into a dream world where it's perpetually the 1920s and his life is chronicled by a narrator.

Louis rents a room from Henry (Kevin Kline), an eccentric playwright who fancies himself an aristocrat and lends himself out as an escort to the grande dames of New York society.

Then there's a hunchback and an extremely hairy downtown neighbor (John C. Reilly, speaking in a distracting falsetto voice). Katie Holmes also makes an appearance as Louis' love interest, and at one point sings a song about a cement plant.

The best performance of the bunch is Dano's. He gives Louis a sweet, sympathetic air. It's hard not to feel sorry for the guy.

All this oddity doesn't add up to much, but the film is light, frothy and funny -- a good choice for the opening night of the festival. -- Susan Gilmor

General Orders No. 9, . 72 minutes. Rated TN. Documentary Feature. Showing: 3:30 p.m. April 16, 1:30 p.m. April 17, 11 a.m. April 18, 4 p.m. April 19, Aperture Cinema.

Robert Persons has concocted something interesting and lovely with his first film, General Orders No. 9.

Persons blends striking visual images and narrative to create a cinematic poem, an ode to the state of Georgia.

The film is trancelike with images washing over the audience, lulling us into a quiet place where we can focus on the beauty of it all. It's creative, striking and memorable. -- Susan Gilmor

George Washington, . 89 minutes. Rated MT. Special Screening. Showing: 6:30 p.m. April 23, Main.

Director David Gordon Green's auspicious 2000 feature film debut was shot in Winston-Salem in 1998, telling the story of a group of adolescents growing up in a poor neighborhood.

In an essay for the Criterion Collection, a prestigious video label devoted to culturally significant films, writer Armond White wrote "While capturing the real, contemporary issues of poverty, youth alienation and racial interaction, it touches on the noblest, most loving quests of its characters and solicits a personal response from anyone who views it." The very fact that Green's first film merited attention from the Criterion Collection speaks volumes about his talent and potential. -- Tim Clodfelter

The Good Heart, , 95 minutes. Rated R. Special Screening. Showing: 8 p.m. April 21, Stevens Center; 9:30 p.m. April 24, Main; 1:30 p.m. April 25, Babcock.

You know you've got health problems when the staff at your local hospital knows you by name. That's the case with Jacques, a cantankerous bar owner who just had his fifth heart attack and seems likely to die of heart failure.

He's a miserable man who seems to delight in making others miserable, too. But then he meets Lucas, a young homeless man who tries to kill himself, but fails, instead winding up in the hospital with Jacques.

Jacques takes him home to his dingy bar, which he runs with a bizarre set of rules and a lot of cursing. Lucas begins to learn the trade, only to become distracted when a young stewardess walks into the bar and into his life.

Brian Cox is perfectly cast as Jacques, delivering his caustic lines with malevolent glee. Paul Dano, likewise, is well suited to his role as the meek Lucas. Together, they make an odd, but funny, team.

Director Dagur Kari has delivered something delightfully quirky with The Good Heart. It has humor, personality and, well, heart. -- Susan Gilmor

Hipsters, . 125 minutes. Rated MT. Russian and English, with subtitles. Showing: 7 p.m. April 25, Main.

The Russian musical Hipsters will be the festival closer on April 25.
(photo courtesy of RiverRun)

Today, hipsters are 20- and 30-somethings wielding MacBooks, messenger bags and serious glasses. The "hipsters" of 1950s Moscow live in stark contrast to much of the Soviet Union, donning circle skirts, pompadours and Americanized names -- Bob, Betsy and Fred. They flutter like butterflies among all the steel and gray. In a country where "kowtowing to Western Ideology" is a crime, this is dangerous ground.

Enter Mels, a baby-faced Communist who isn't as devoted to the cause as his grim-faced comrades. "Every hipster is a potential criminal," one of them hisses to him after the Young Communists raid a hipsters party. "A saxophone is only one small step away from a switchblade."

Ah, but Mels falls in love with one of those good-for-nothing Technicolor women, Polly. If Hipsters has a flaw, it's the easy but not quite believable story line of their love affair. Otherwise, the dance numbers sing, the characters are clever and the film is beautifully shot. As RiverRun's final film, the festival will go out with a candy store of a musical, easy on the eyes, witty and fun with some political smarts mixed in. Think Hairspray, chased down with vodka. -- Laura Giovanelli

His & Hers, . 80 minutes. Rated TN. Feature Documentary. Showing: 4 p.m. April 16, 11:30 a.m. April 17, at 6 p.m. April 18, 2:30 p.m. April 23, Aperture Cinema.

A baby putting her feet in her mouth. A little girl playing with a toy phone. A daughter learning to walk, learning to play soccer and the saxophone, learning to drive. They grow up so fast.

Through interviews with 70 Irish women from birth to old age, Ken Wardrop's quiet, sweet documentary follows the arch of an old Irish proverb: "A man knows his girlfriend the most, his wife the best, and his mother the longest." The women are all different, but their stories fall seamlessly into a larger picture of life -- boys, wedding days, pregnancies, widowhood. The editing in particular is so clean that it can be difficult to tell where one girl's monolog ends and another begins. Themes echo over and over --a young girl who peels potatoes but needs a chair to reach the kitchen sink, to the older woman who also peels potatoes at a kitchen sink but first takes off her engagement ring. Not a flashy film, but a focused one. -- Laura Giovanelli

I Am Love, . 120 minutes. Rated R. Special Screening. Italian, Russian and English. MT for sex. Showing 7 p.m. April 18, Stevens Center; 8:30 p.m. April 20, Main, 3;30 p.m. April 25, Gold. Tickets are $16.

"I want to live there," my husband said, ogling the ornate staircases and swishy chandlers in the Milan mansion and poolside party-world inhabited by the cast of I Am Love. Oh, no, he doesn't. The Recchi family owns a factory. They are powerful, rich and beautiful people -- like an Italian Dynasty, with better taste in clothes, food and furniture. Perfection is not a choice here: When son Edo comes in second in a race, his family spends much of the first part of the film asking him why he lost.

Mother Emma -- played by Academy Award-winning actress Tilda Swinton -- is the picture of grace. She doesn't walk; she floats around this pretty world without a strand of her honey-colored coiffure out of place (Swinton, herself, is a wonder -- her characters speaks Russian and Russian-accented Italian.)

Things aren't what they seem, though -- of course, that's where things get interesting. Emma's son and husband can't agree on business, her daughter falls in love with a woman. And Emma starts a passionate affair with a sensitive chef, and she re-connects with part of herself she left when she immigrated to Italy from Russia as a young woman. -- Laura Giovanelli

I Killed My Mother, , 96 minutes. Rated MT. Narrative Feature. Showing: 8 p.m. April 22, Aperture Cinema; 7 p.m. April 24, Main.

Anne Dorval contemplates her fate in I Killed My Mother, a Narrative Feature.
(photo courtesy of RiverRun)

Naturalism and fantasy coexist in this acerbic domestic drama (not devoid of humor) from Canada. In I Killed My Mother, director Xavier Dolan tells the story, described as semi-autobiographical, of a gay teen, Hubert. Played affectingly by Dolan, Hubert is, like many teens, both adorable and infuriating.

His love for his mother, who is hovering and distracted by turns, and his mostly absent father provide the context for Hubert's conflict. His emotional shifts are dizzying in their speed and frequency. Present-time upheavals are frequently contrasted with what look like home movies that are peaceful and joyful.

Spoiler alert. This is a good movie, and if that's all you want to know, then stop reading now. The tension is so exquisitely high and the angst so palpable in this film, that I found it difficult to enjoy until it was over and I realized that nothing really bad was going to happen. So that's the spoiler: Nothing awful happens. Knowing that, you'll be better able to see the many charming and stark moments of truth and beauty that it contains. -- Lynn Felder

It Came From Kuchar, ½. 86 minutes. Late Night. Rated MT. Showings: 9 p.m. April 16, 9:30 p.m. April 17, 7 p.m. April 24, Aperture.

Like Best Worst Movie, this documentary looks at the world of filmmaking that appeals to cult audiences but that will leave many mainstream viewers shaking their heads in disbelief.

The Kuchar Brothers, George and Mike, are amazingly prolific, turning out dozens and dozens of ultra-low-budget, surreal movies that blend science fiction, over-the-top dramatics, bizarre imagery and more. Among their titles: The Fury of Frau Frankenstein, Sins of the


Fleshapoids, Hold Me While I'm Naked, and Thundercrack, to mention only a very few (George alone has 216 directing credits on the Internet Movie Database). Fans including such filmmakers as John Waters, Buck Henry and Atom Egoyan chime in. -- Tim Clodfelter

Jean-Michel Basquiat: The Radiant Child, , 88 minutes. Rated MT. Documentary Feature. Showing: 6:30 p.m. April 16, 11 a.m. April 17, 3:30 p.m. April 18, 11:30 a.m. April 24, Aperture Cinema.

The Radiant Child, a balanced yet passionate examination of the life and work of artist Jean-Michel Basquiat, captures the artistic and cultural explosion that occurred in Manhattan in the 1980s and tells the tragic tale of one of its most brilliant casualties.

The documentary contains the usual talking heads -- friends, lovers, patrons -- who are all articulate, even compelling, and there's also plenty of film footage of Basquiat at work and play.

Basquiat started his glittering career as a graffiti artist with the alias SAMO -- for same old stuff -- and sky-rocketed to fame and success. Debbie Harry (Blondie), the New Wave musician, bought his first painting for $200. He became the darling of journalists and celebrities.

But Basquiat's star fell almost as quickly as it rose. Despite his portrayal as a "primitive" -- and he contributed somewhat to that portrayal -- Baquiat was sophisticated and educated in the ways of art and culture. His mother died when he was young, and his father was distant. There was nothing cliched about Basquiat, his art or his life. But he was a classic case of too much too soon.

Heroin addiction combined with career doldrums -- a two-man show with Andy Warhol was a commercial and critical failure -- followed by his idol Warhol's unexpected death set Basquiat on a downward spiral to death by drug overdose at 27.

This film is a beautiful and illuminating homage to a dazzling talent gone too soon. -- Lynn Felder

Katalin Varga, . 82 minutes. Rated MT. Narrative Feature. Showing: 3 p.m. April 18 and 9 p.m. April 19, Main; 8 p.m. April 22,


Gold.

A scene from Katalin Varga, a Narrative Feature from Romania.
(photo courtesy of RiverRun)

Katalin Varga has won several awards and much critical acclaim. And it does have some fine elements: excellent performances, haunting scenery, and a powerful final segment. But they don't quite add up to a satisfying whole.

The film starts well. A long-buried secret is revealed, causing a husband to cast out his wife, Katalin, and her son. The viewer doesn't yet know what the secret is, so we go on the journey as the pair travel by horse and cart across Transylvania.

It's a slow journey, even as the insistently foreboding score tells us that something bad is going to happen. Momentum finally develops as Katalin confronts her past -- the scene where she fully reveals what happened is stunning. But then the film seems to run out of time to explore the questions about vengeance and redemption that it raises, coming to an abrupt and violent end.

The acting, however, is superb. Hilda Peter, who plays Katalin, seems almost physically transformed scene by scene as different facets of her character are revealed. And the most interesting character is Tibor Palffy as Antal, a seemingly good man hiding a terrible secret. It is a pity that we don't get to see more of him. -- Julie Harris

Last Train Home, Not reviewed. 85 minutes. Rated MT. Documentary Feature. In Chinese with English subtitles. Showing: 7 p.m. April 17, 5:30 p.m. April 23, Aperture Cinema, 1 p.m. April 18, Main.

This documentary looks at a Chinese family on a trip home from the industrial center where they work.

Late Night Shorts, . Rated MT. Showing: 8:30 p.m. April 16, 9 p.m. April 17, 9:30 p.m. April 24, Aperture Cinema.

RiverRun's Late Night Shorts program has a mix of live action and animated shorts, some more offbeat than others, but none of them boring. Unlike some of the late night shorts programs in recent years, none of these feels like filler.

The highlight this year is a new short from animator Bill Plympton, a favorite from previous years' RiverRun festivals. His latest, Horn Dog, is another story of a scrappy, enthusiastic pup trying to overcome great obstacles, this time trying to woo an aloof female dog.

Other highlights include Albert's Speech, about a nervous introvert (Nicholas Burns, the star of the brilliant but short-lived British sitcoms Nathan Barley and No Heroics) trying to muster the courage to speak at his best friend's wedding; I Live in the Woods!, a frenetic stop-motion short about a maniacal hillbilly; The Surprise Demise of Francis Cooper's Mother, a droll animated British comedy about three people dealing with responsibility and mortality; and Banana Bread, about a young man having an offbeat conversation with his worrywart mother.

Other shorts include animated zombies (Touchdawn of the Dead and Chainsaw Maid), not-so-civil discourse (God and Moses BFF, and Slap, both irreverent live-action shorts), and more.

The humor in some of the shorts is twisted, and there are some gruesome sequences here and there. One advantage of shorts is that, even if one doesn't catch your fancy, it won't be too long before the next one comes along. -- Tim Clodfelter

Let's Make Money, . 110 minutes. Rated TN. Money & Power showcase. Showing: 1 p.m. April 18, 8 p.m. April 19, 3:30 p.m. April 24, 2 p.m. April 25, Aperture Cinema.

Let's Make Money is a documentary in the Money & Power sidebar at RiverRun.
(photo courtesy of RiverRun)

Let's Make Money, a documentary by Austrian Erwin Wagenhofer, exposes how the world's financial markets work to benefit the few at the expense of the many, from desperately poor souls in Africa to low-wage earners in the developed world. The film is divided into several sections, with each amounting to a variation on the same sorry theme.

The film aims to follow the trail of our money through the worldwide finance system. This trail begins at a mine in Ghana at which gold is extracted and flown to Switzerland. Africa gets only 3 percent of the profits, with the rest ending up in the West's rich countries. The mine was opened with financial assistance of the World Bank.

The film's section on tax shelters is particularly scary. It's scary because, apparently, trillions of dollars end up in these schemes -- money that could otherwise be used to alleviate poverty or help provide essential services.

Let's Make Money isn't trying to be balanced or even consider that there might be shades of gray. The consequences of capital moving freely about the world seem only to be bad. To make money is to engage in thoroughly unethical and unjust practices, practices that are both hard to discern and combat, according to this film.

Still, Let's Make Money gives us much reason not only to lament the current state of affairs but also to work on ways to correct it. -- Ken Keuffel

Letters to Father Jacob, , 74 minutes. Rated TN. Narrative Feature. Showing: 5 p.m. April 16, Main; 3:30 p.m. April 17, Babcock; 6:30 p.m. April 18, 6 p.m. April 22, Aperture Cinema.

When convict Leila Sten is pardoned, she is sent to live with the blind and elderly Father Jacob in a remote Finnish village, where the highlight of every day is the arrival of the postman.

Sten, played by Kaarina Hazard, is less than thrilled, particularly when she learns that she must serve as secretary to Jacob, (Heikki Nousiainen) who receives letters from people who ask for his advice and prayers.

The hardened Sten makes it clear that she has no patience with the sentimentality of Jacob's ministry and accuses him of making her his charity case. After all, she knows that he was the one who asked for her pardon.

But things are not what they seem and Sten comes to achieve her own form of grace through Jacob's letters.

One of the pleasures of this film is watching these understated characters' moments of epiphany come about through scenes that are framed and lighted like Old Masters paintings. -- Mary Giunca

Like Water For Chocolate, . 105 minutes. Rated R. Spotlight on Mexican Cinema. Spanish with English subtitles. 4:30 p.m. April 17, Main.

Author Laura Esquivel's 1989 novel was the basis for this 1992 film, a love story set during the Mexican Revolution.

Lush cinematography and magical realism make the story of star-crossed lovers Tita and Pedro as intoxicating as Tita's cooking. An epic story of love and war, Like Water For Chocolate is one of the most romantic films ever made. -- Lynn Felder

Los Olvidados, , 80 minutes. Rated MT. Spotlight on Mexican Cinema. Showing: 12:30 p.m. April 24, Babcock.

This grim but entrancing 1950 film comes from Spanish director Luis Bunuel, who is perhaps best known for surreal works such as Un Chien Andalou.

Los Olvidados, which translates as "The Forgotten Ones," goes for a more realistic tone, though it retains some surreal touches. The story follows a group of poor youths growing up in the slums of Mexico City, focusing on a boy named Pedro, his apathetic mother, and a fascinating but deadly juvenile delinquent named El Jaibo. Bunuel pulls no punches in his depiction of the desperation caused by extreme poverty. -- Tim Clodfelter

Lourdes, , 96 minutes. Rated MT. Special Screening. Showing: 6 p.m. April 16, Babcock; noon April 17, Main; noon April 18, Babcock.

The sacred and the secular mingle in Lourdes, France, which attracts hordes of Catholic pilgrims each year. As the film makes clear, they are lured by the chance of a miraculous physical healing and a greater sense of grace.

The film captures the sacred masses and rituals along with the souvenir shops selling plastic Our Lady of Lourdes statues and the announcement of the "best pilgrim" prize among a tour group.

Lourdes focuses on a young woman with multiple sclerosis, played by Sylvie Testud, who has come to Lourdes as part of a religious tour group. Testud plays the part of a young, wheelchair-bound woman with combination of understated humor, intelligence and occasional flashes of anger at her condition.

Her quiet strength and patience is the counterpart to the rampant, somewhat crass, speculation among some of the other pilgrims about when the next miracle will occur and whether it will last.

You can see the end coming almost from the start, and, for that reason, there are times when the film moves a bit too slowly. You may find yourself thinking, "Get up and walk, already!"

But the film's quiet grace, beautiful scenery and pitch-perfect acting strike a balance between the all-too-human-world of our own foibles and those moments that point to something beyond. -- Mary Giunca

Maria Candelaria (Xochimilco), Not reviewed. Rated MT. 76 minutes. Spotlight on Mexican Cinema. In Spanish with English Subtitles. Showing: 1:15 p.m. April 17, Babcock.

This 1944 drama was the first Mexican film ever to be shown at the Cannes Film Festival in 1946, where it won the Grand Prix award. It follows the relationship between a woman (Dolores Del Rio) who has been shunned by her community for being the daughter of a prostitute, and a man (Pedro Armendariz) who is smitten with her.

Mao's Last Dancer, Not reviewed. 117 Minutes. Rated MT. Special Screening. 7 p.m. April, Stevens Center

Directed by Bruce Beresford (Driving Miss Daisy), this is a drama about a Chinese dancer who faces difficult choices when given a chance to dance in the U.S.

Mid-August Lunch, , 75 minutes. Rated MT. Narrative Feature. Italian with subtitles. Showing: 11:30 a.m. April 17, Babcock; 3:30 p.m. April 18, Gold; 7:30 p.m. April 21, Aperture Cinema

A scene from Mid-August Lunch, part of the Narrative Feature competition.
(photo courtesy of RiverRun)

Gianni Di Gregorio wrote, directed and stars in this sweet Italian film about a middle-aged man forced to look after four elderly women on a holiday weekend. Filmed mostly in an apartment with nonprofessional actors, this low-budget film is nonetheless rich with the sometimes sad, sometimes comic and sometimes loving realizations that come with age. Gianni is a middle-aged, unemployed man who is trying to scrape by while caring for his mother. To pay off some condominium debts, he agrees to look after the condo supervisor's mother during Ferragosto, the Aug. 15 Feast of the Assumption, when everyone else leaves town. Before he knows it, he has agreed to look after two more elderly women in his cramped apartment. Gianni copes by cooking -- and drinking. The women are by turns annoying, funny and insightful. Gianni wants nothing but to fulfill his obligation and get rid of them, but the women have a grand time despite him in this cute, endearing slice of Italian life. -- Michael Hastings

My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done, , 91 minutes. Rated MT. Special Screening. Showing: 7 p.m. April 24, Stevens Center; 4:30 p.m. April 25, Main.

Werner Herzog's latest film, My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done, plays out like a cross between a Greek tragedy and an episode of David Lynch's Twin Peaks -- which isn't surprising, really, given that Lynch served as an executive producer of the film.

Michael Shannon plays the resident wack-job, Brad, a man who kills his mother (the great Grace Zabriskie) with a samurai sword then retreats into his house while police officers (including Willem Dafoe) swarm the neighborhood and try to piece together what has happened. Chloe Sevigny play's Brad's fiancee, who inexplicably sticks with him even as he grows alarmingly unhinged.

It's an odd film, made even stranger by the fact that it's based on the true story of Mark Yarovsky, a grad student who stabbed his mother with a sword in 1979 while rehearsing the starring role in a school production of Orestes in San Diego, Calif.

Too add to the weirdness, Herzog throws in some unnerving tableaux, a mariachi band, a bunch of ostriches and, if that weren't enough, a couple of flamingos named MacDougal and MacNamara. In the end, the film doesn't have much substance, but fans of Herzog and Lynch's brands of offbeat cinema still might find something to enjoy here. -- Susan Gilmor

Narrative Shorts 1, , 114 minutes. Rated MT. Showing at 2 p.m. April 16, Gold; 3:30 p.m. April 23, Main; 11:30 a.m. April 24, Gold; 10 a.m. April 25, Gold.

This collection proves that humor can be universal, since all the shorts in the package are from foreign countries, and only one is in English.

Highlights include a pair of Spanish productions, Duck Crossing, a mockumentary about the largely unexplored history of ducks in cinema, and Practical Manual of Imaginary Friends, about a 27-year-old man who very belatedly starts to get a personal life and stops relying on his imaginary childhood friend, who sets out to win him back. An imaginary friend also figures into Little Face, a charming British short.

Other shorts come from France (One Last Cigarette), Israel (Vida), France and Israel (Almost Normal), and another one from Spain, the particularly off kilter Worstward Ho. -- Tim Clodfelter

Narrative Shorts No. 2, , 95 minutes. Rated MT. Showing 8:30 p.m. April 18, Gold; 1 p.m. April 23, Main; 4:30 p.m. April 24, Main; 1 p.m. April 25, Gold.

This round-up of eight shorts starts with a dreamy Spanish film, 5 Memories, about a woman who suddenly can't remember an ingredient in a fish soup she has made over and over again. Irma's forgetfulness leads her from one memory to the next, like a slide down Lewis Carroll's rabbit hole. It's lovely, with hints of Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Jean-Pierre Jeunet (the director of Amelie).

Other films in this batch worth catching: Ivadelle, about the loneliness of growing older; 40 Degrees in the Shade, wherein a businessman gets lost in a desert (that's 40 degrees Centigrade) and starts to see very strange things; Little Inconvenience, where an ordinary man wakes up with a very unordinary problem -- or is it? -- Laura Giovanelli

No Crossover: The Trial of Allen Iverson, . 80 minutes. Rated MT. Special Screening. Showing: 12:30 p.m. April 16, Main; 10:30 a.m. April 18, 2 p.m. April 24, Aperture Cinema.

Allen Iverson is most known as the troubled yet gifted player for the Philadelphia 76ers (he left in late February to deal with his daughter's illness). But the documentary No Crossover looks at the years before he became a NBA player.

Iverson grew up poor in Hampton, Va., and saw basketball as a way out. He became a standout high-school athlete, but all of that crumpled when a brawl at a bowling alley nearly split the city along racial lines. Iverson was accused of throwing a chair at a white woman during the brawl and was sentenced to five years in prison, which many in the black community called unfair.

The film is told through the eyes of its director, Steve James, who grew up in Hampton and whose father was a big fan of Iverson. The movie is his personal journey to understand why this incident divided blacks and whites, and his observations are intermingled with interviews with people who were there.

It's a fascinating story but one that feels incomplete. There's not enough context to explain why some black people supported Iverson, which has everything to do with long-standing tensions between the criminal justice system and the black community.

But what does emerge is a nuanced portrait of Iverson, whose past continues to haunt his present. -- Michael Hewlett

Norteado (Northless), . 95 minutes. Rated MT. Narrative Feature. Showing: 2:30 p.m. April 16, Main; 8 p.m. April 17, Gold; 5:30 p.m. April 18, Babcock; 5 pm. April 21, Aperture Cinema.

Each year, thousands of Mexicans attempt to enter the United States illegally, endangering their lives in forbidding desert terrain and risking capture by an ever-vigilant U.S. Border Patrol (aka la migra). What might this experience be like for these poor, desperate souls at the center of the debate over immigration reform?

In Norteado (Northless), director and screenwriter Rigoberto Perezcano gives us some illuminating, even unpredictable, answers.

The plot is straightforward: Andres repeatedly tries in vain to enter the United States in search of a better life. Most of the action unfolds at the Tijuana border, where Andres has befriended two women, Cata and Ela, who work at a convenience store. Ironically, the women employ Andres, paying him enough money to survive. And they bond with him in ways that remind us of how difficult it might be, on a psychological level, to leave home even if home means hopeless poverty.

The laconic nature of the dialogue recalls that in many a French art film. Each and every word counts.

Some of the scenes in which Andres either journeys to the border or attempts to cross it will either make you cringe, break your heart or make you yearn for more sensible and humane immigration policies. The overall effect is enhanced by a lovely marriage of music and cinematography. -- Ken Keuffel

North, , 79 minutes. Rated MT. Narrative Feature. Showing at 6 p.m. April 16, Aperture; 7 p.m. April 23, UNCSA Gold; 6:30 p.m. April 24 and 4 p.m. April 25, UNCSA Babcock

Jomar Henrickson is a former skiing champion whose inability to ski anymore has given him panic attacks and anxiety -- two conditions that caused him to lose a woman he loved. In one of the opening scenes, his ex-lover's new lover comes to the door of the cabin where Jomar both lives and operates a ski lift, and tells Jomar he has a son.

Jomar decides to go find his old life.

Taking nothing but a snowmobile, the pills he takes each night and a plastic container full of moonshine, Jomar heads north, through Norway, to the Tamock Valley, where his ex now lives. Along the way, he encounters people who both save his life and restore his spirit, in comical encounters.

North is filled with beautiful scenery, sparse but hysterical dialogue and the kind of folksy soundtrack that embodies a man's journey against nature and himself. -- Laura Graff

Oceans, Not reviewed. 100 minutes. Rated G. Green Scene. Showing: 7 p.m. April 21, Main.

Disney's follow-up to its spectacular nature documentary Earth gets a preview screening at RiverRun one day before going into wider theatrical release.

Only When I Dance, . 78 minutes. Rated TN. Documentary Feature. Showing: 2:30 p.m. April 17, Main; 4 p.m. April 18 and 5:30 p.m. April 21, Aperture Cinema

Imagine wanting something more than anything, just to have your chances for achieving your dream pulled out from under you because of lack of money to pursue it.

This is what faces two young Brazilian dancers: Irlan, one of the best male dancers in Brazil with the potential to make it big, and Isabela, an Afro-Brazilian ballerina with all the drive and none of the money. The two try to prove to their coaches, their families and themselves that they can reach their dreams no matter the cost.

Irlan and Isabela practice for months and months in preparation for the biggest competition of their lives. The Youth America Grand Prix in New York City will make or break their careers, sending them either to an ideal future or back to the streets of Rio de Janeiro.

As the competition nears, Irlan flies to an additional competition in Switzerland, the Prix de Lausanne, where the dancers are fiercer, the jury is stricter and the stakes are higher. On the other hand, Isabela is struggling with weight and ankle problems, and the urgent need to raising enough money to travel to New York.

This documentary is truly inspiring and reminds us that as long as we have the heart and the drive, we can accomplish anything. -- Megan Probst (Summit School)

Osadne, . 65 minutes. Rated MT. Documentary Feature, Slovak, Czech, Rusyn and English. Showing: 2 p.m. April 16, 1:30 p.m. April 18, Aperture Cinema; 3 p.m. April 17, Gold.

In the past five years in the tiny Slovakian village of Osadne, the local priest has buried 50 people and baptized two. Located on the far eastern fringe of the European Union, the village has less than 200 inhabitants, mostly Rusyn, a minority ethnic group.

The priest and the mayor think they know a way to save their town -- drum up tourism by building a monastery or a chapel. If they build it, surely people will come.

Their lobbying includes eye-opening travels to the EU's headquarters in Brussels, and extending gifts of icons and hunting trips to parliament members. "We're having a baby," the priest's wife tells him. "It ought to have some prospects."

Osadne, like its residents, is gentle, sweet and endearing, yet unsentimental -- while much of Europe may have high-speed trains, good chocolate and slick eyeglasses, residents of Osadne just want their hometown to stick around. -- Laura Giovanelli

OSS 117: Lost in Rio. . 101 minutes. Rated MT. Special Screening, French with English subtitles. Showing: 7 p.m. April 23, Stevens Center; 6:30 p.m. April 24, Aperture Cinema; 2 p.m. April 25, Main. Tickets are $16.

Bumbling superspy Hubert Bonisseur de la Bath is back in 0SS 117: Lost in Rio. The French spy spoof is a sequel to 0SS 117: Cairo, Nest of Spies, which played at RiverRun in 2008.

French comedian Jean Dujardin -- who bears a strong resemblance to Sean Connery in his prime -- stars as a swaggering, self-absorbed secret agent who gets by on sheer confidence. He's a smirking egomaniac, he's obliviously racist and misogynistic, and yet he is somehow endearing. As in Nest of Spies, this film is clearly the work of filmmakers who love the 1960s spy genre but don't take it too seriously, with knowing winks at various clichés and plot devices. Lost in Rio is lot of fun, though not quite up to the level of the first film. The filmmakers have made Hubert even more obnoxious than he was the first time around.

The plot, such as it is, takes Hubert to South America in search of a Nazi leader who went into hiding after World War II. Along the way, he runs into a beautiful Israeli spy, vengeful Chinese mobsters, hedonistic hippies and more. -- Tim Clodfelter

Paper Moon, . 102 minutes. Special Screening. Rated PG. Showing: 7 p.m. April 17, Main.

Peter Bogdanovich's 1973 classic features father-and-daughter team Ryan and Tatum O'Neal as a pair of con artists traveling through the Midwest during the Great Depression. Moses Pray (Ryan O'Neal) and Addie Loggins (Tatum), a world-wise 9-year-old who may or may not be Moses' daughter, scheme together by pretending to be Bible salesmen. Madeline Kahn co-stars as a stripper named Miss Trixie Delight.

Like Bogdanovich's earlier film The Last Picture Show, Paper Moon is shot in black and white, emulating the look of films from the era it is set in.

In his 1973 review of the movie, Roger Ebert remarked, "Bogdanovich takes the con games only as the experience which his two lead characters share and which draws them together in a way that's funny sometimes, but also very poignant and finally deeply touching." -- Tim Clodfelter

Pineapple Express, . 111 minutes. Special Screening. Rated R. Showing: 9:30 p.m. April 22, Main.

After a string of indie dramas, David Gordon Green, an alumnus of the UNC School of the Arts, went for the mainstream with this fast-paced, funny parody of action movies. Seth Rogen and James Franco star as a pair of stoners who run afoul of a crime boss (Gary Cole) and wind up on the lam. Danny McBride has a scene-stealing supporting role, and the cast also includes such perfomers as Nora Dunn, Bill Hader, Ed Begley Jr., Craig Robinson, Kevin Corrigan and Rosie Perez, each of whom gets his or her moment to shine.

The action scenes include some amusingly clumsy fight scenes, as characters who aren't action heroes try to conform to the cliches of movie action and come up short. There's also a surprising amount of bloodshed, gross-out humor, and plenty of slapstick, and moments that cause the audience to laugh and cringe at the same time.

At its heart, the movie is less a pot comedy than it is a "bromance," focusing on the friendship between the main characters as they rely on each other and become best buds in the process. -- Tim Clodfelter

Please, Please Me, . 90 minutes. Special Screening. French with English subtitles. Rated MT. Showing: 7 p.m. April 16, Main; 9:30 a.m. April 17, Babock.

Poor Jean-Jacques. He's a French Woody Allen, minus the New York cynicism, a quirky inventor plagued by the pursuit of love. When an acquaintance insists that women can be seduced with words, Jean-Jacques is all ears. The man's method? Pass a pretty lady a well-written note, and then rendezvous. Voila, passion! Jean-Jacques has a girlfriend, but decides, in the name of science, to exercise this theory on a beautiful stranger sitting in a café. Then his girlfriend insists that he get the mysterious woman out of his system -- he must sleep with her.

Zut, alors! She turns out to be the daughter of the president. In the end, it's up in the air who wins this sexy battle-of-the-sexes.

Fun, frisky and heavy on physical comedy, I still suspect Please, Please Me wouldn't be nearly as comical in English. But it's sweet, and the James Bond-like secret doors and security in the president's abode are worth the price of a ticket alone. -- Laura Giovanelli

Saturday Morning Cartoons, , 74 minutes. Rated FM. Showing: 10 a.m. April 17 and 24, Main.

Children and adults alike will find much to enjoy in this collection of 11 animated shorts from around the world. Though a couple have subtitles, most tell their stories through evocative visuals and music.

Luminoir, or Lightmare, from France is one of the ones with subtitles. It's a charming tale of why children need not fear the dark. The Border Armadillo from Mexico brings to mind classic Warner Bros. mayhem with its story of a father armadillo struggling to feed his family. Several two-minute pieces by animation students at the Ringling College of Art and Design -- Cat's Meow, Nuri, Oxygen and On the Level -- are very different in style and subject, but uniformly fresh and entertaining. Pigeon: Impossible, the over-the-top tale of conflict between a secret agent and a hungry bird, is laugh-out-loud funny, but marred by a mean-spirited final scene.

At 24 minutes, Varmints is the longest film, and the best. Its tale of environmental devastation and hope is told through the eyes of a gentle, cuddly "varmint" whose idyllic pastoral world is overrun by dark, dreary "varmints" and the urban wasteland they bring with them. Beautifully animated, by turns exhilarating and frightening, it is intensely moving without saying a word. -- Julie Harris

The Shock Doctrine, , 79 minutes. Rated MT. Money & Power showcase. Showing: 7 p.m. April 19, Main; 6 p.m. April 20 and 5 p.m. April 22, Aperture Cinema.

Capitalism isn't popular these days, with high unemployment rates and the continuing fallout from the global financial crisis. And one of capitalism's greatest critics is Naomi Klein, author of The Shock Doctrine, in which she argues that corporations and politicians force free-market policies on countries during times of "shock" -- a natural disaster or a takeover of the government.

She calls this phenomenon "disaster capitalism," where everything is privatized and no one objects because they're too shell-shocked to realize what's happening.

Now, Klein has turned her best-selling book into a documentary. Unfortunately, directors Michael Winterbottom and Mat Whitecross have not translated the book to screen all that smoothly.

When the subject is obscure economic theory, you have to make a documentary intriguing enough so that people won't take to snoozing. Parts of the film are compelling, including an interview with a woman who survived shock therapy (Klein argues that there are similarities between shock therapy and the methods used in disaster capitalism).

But much of the film is a history lesson frequently interrupted with shots of Klein speaking at college campuses. There's no consistent narrative that gives Klein's arguments life. And whatever Klein is trying to get across ends up being lost. -- Michael Hewlett

Soap and Water, , 85 minutes. Rated MT. Documentary Feature. German with English Subtitles. Showing: 4 p.m. April 17, 7 p.m. April 22, 8 p.m. April 23, Aperture Cinema; 4:30 p.m. April 24, Gold.

All day, three curmudgeonly women toil away in the noise and the heat of the Utrecht Laundry in Hamburg, Germany, working through mountains of napkins, towels and shirts.

One's life revolves around her family. Another worries non-stop about her bills. And the third showers her plants, birds and her tiny, old dog with affection -- she left her husband and her four children years ago because the husband was an alcoholic.

Often humorous, always subdued, Soap and Water is a sensitive, intimate look at class and blue-collar life in modern Europe. -- Laura Giovanelli

So Right, So Smart, . 93 minutes. Rated TN. Green Scene. Showing: 8 p.m. April 19, 3:30 p.m. April 20, 4 p.m. April 24, 11 a.m. April 25, Aperture Cinema.

The film tells the story of Ray Anderson, founder of Interface, a Georgia -based carpet company. Anderson started the business as an entrepreneur without much concern about how the company's work was affecting the environment. But through a series of enlightening encounters, he came to realize that he could make "green" changes to his company that would help both the environment and his bottom line.

Anderson brought on a veritable brain trust of environmental thinkers to help him transform the company, and it's through interviews with them and Anderson where the ideas behind the company's transformation are expressed. Other corporate efforts to go green are also explored in the film.

As most of the film is done through interviews, it's not the most visually appealing environmental film out there. The directors seemed to understand this limitation and attempted to address it through such techniques split-screen interviews. But if you're looking for an environmental film that catches the beauty of the natural world, this is not the film for you. -- Paul Garber

Suck, . 90 minutes. Rated MT. Late Night. Showing: 9:30 p.m. April 16, Main; 4:30 p.m. April 17, Aperture; 10 p.m. April 23, Babcock; 9:30 p.m. April 24, Gold.

Suck is a Late Night feature about vampires and rock and roll. Whoa!
(photo courtesy of RiverRun)

Another day, another rock and roll vampire comedy. Suck, the successor (in just about every way) to the 1990 Rockula and the 2002 Queen of the Damned (which wasn't meant to be a comedy, but was), tells the story of a struggling rock band that embraces vampirism as a stepping stone in the rock lifestyle. That draws the attention of vampire hunter Eddie Van Helsing (the always-reliable Malcolm McDowell). The film is cheeky and inventive, playing with the clichés of both vampire movies and rock and roll films.

Rob Stefaniuk wrote, directed and stars in the film as the lead singer of the band, The Winners, with Jessica Pare as the band's beautiful, dangerous bass player and Dave Foley of The Kids in the Hall comedy troupe as the band's sleazy manager. Such musicians as Henry Rollins, Iggy Pop, Alice Cooper and Moby turn up in cameo roles. -- Tim Clodfelter

The Topp Twins: Untouchable Girls, , 84 minutes. Rated MT. Documentary Feature. Showing: 5:30 p.m. April 17, Babcock; 5 p.m. April 18, Main; 6:30 p.m. April 20, Gold; 3 p.m. April 23, Aperture Cinema.

On paper, an act that features yodeling lesbian twins doesn't really work, writer Paul Horan says early on in The Topp Twins: Untouchable Girls. Happily, that's not the case in reality.

The Topp Twins -- sisters Jools and Lynda Topp -- have been entertaining audiences in New Zealand for nearly 30 years. Their act blends country and Western singing -- and, yes, a little yodeling -- as well as comedy and a cast of wacky recurring characters who the women play, ranging from a couple of boozy polyester-clad male farmers to a pair of ladies who lunch, Prue and Dilly Ramsbottom.

The film, directed by Leanne Pooley, follows the twins from their early days growing up on a diary farm, through the years when they performed on the streets for spare change and to the point where they gained national prominence.

They used their fame to fight for causes they believed in -- gay rights, the rights of indigenous people and the struggle to end apartheid.

The sisters are delightful to watch, charming, personable and, above all, real. And that's what makes this film work so well. -- Susan Gilmor

Troll 2, . 95 minutes. Rated PG-13. Late Night. Showing: 11:59 p.m. April 23, Main.

For a time, Troll 2 had the dishonorable distinction of being listed as the No. 1 worst movie of all time on the Internet Movie Database (it has since risen in the charts to be 58th worst). It's not that bad, but it sure isn't good. The movie, made by an Italian production crew but shot in America with American actors, is mindbogglingly bad but consistently watchable.

Michael Stephenson, then a dead ringer for a young Bobby Brady from The Brady Bunch, stars as Joshua, an obnoxious boy whose family goes on vacation to a quiet little town full of sinister villagers, a cackling, psychopathic witch (Deborah Reed, in perhaps the film's most bizarre performance) and murderous goblins -- no, despite the title, they're not even trolls. The title was changed from "Goblins" to make audiences think it was a sequel to another, less mesmerizingly awful, horror flick.

Together with his dopey parents, his shrill Valley Girl sister, her goofball boyfriend, and his dead grandpa's ghost (or something like that), Joshua must fight the goblins and stop their evil ways. The acting is consistently terrible, the goblin masks look as if they've been bought from a Halloween store remainder sale (and don't even match up with each other), and the plot takes all kinds of absurd twists. The movie can't seem to decide if it wants to be campy or sincere, kid-friendly or gory, lousy or really lousy. But you won't get bored, that's for sure. -- Tim Clodfelter

Who's Afraid of the Wolf, . 90 minutes. Rated TN. Narrative Feature, Czech with English subtitles. Showing: 10:30 a.m. April 17, Gold; 8 p.m. April 21, Aperture Cinema; 2:30 April 24, Main.

Terezka (Dorota Dedkova), 6, has more problems than the average Czech first-grader: She's convinced that she is adopted and that her mother is from another planet. Her parents' marriage, strained by years of secrets and lies, is unraveling. And little Terezka's obsession with Little Red Robin Hood has her seeing wolves around every corner. Written and directed by Maria Prochazkova, the film weaves all of these stories into a modern fairytale about identity, family and the loss of innocence. Dedkova and the other child stars carry the bulk of the action in this sweet little film, switching nimbly between adult conversations about divorce and confusion over whether or not aliens really exist. Prochazkova's use of animation -- in the form of childlike lines and stick figures -- adds to the beauty and the sentimentality of the film. -- Jeri Young

Women Without Men, , 95 minutes. Rated TN. Narrative Feature. Showing: 5 p.m. April 16, 12:30 p.m. April 17, Gold; 11:30 a.m. April 25, Main.

Women Without Men, directed by Shirin Neshat and Shoja Azari, depicts the intertwining lives of four women during a time of great unrest in Iran. It's 1953, on the eve of a coup -- backed by the CIA and the British -- that brought down the democratically-elected prime minister, Mohammed Mossadegh, and restored the Shah to power.

Munis (Shabnam Tolouei) spends her days listening to the radio, trying to glean any bit of news she can, while her brother Assad (Bijan Daneshmand) scolds her for her unfeminine behavior. Her more traditional friend Faezeh (Pegah Ferydoni) drops in from time to time, but seems more interested in attracting Assad's attention than in supporting her friend.

Meanwhile, Fakhri (Arita Shahrzad) leaves her unhappy marriage to an army officer and takes up residence in an old house in a remote orchard. Zarin (Orsi Toth) runs away from the brothel where she has been working as a prostitute and finds her way to the orchard, damaged, gaunt and tormented by her past.

It's a visually striking film, heavy on imagery and metaphor. Reality comes and goes, frequently replaced by fantasy and far-fetched plot twists, such as a character who dies only to be resurrected. It can be frustratingly hard to follow at times.

But it's also evocative and eloquent, with a haunting soundtrack and images that linger long after the film has ended. -- Susan Gilmor

Y Tu Mama Tambien. . 105 minutes. Rated R. Spotlight on Mexican Cinema. Spanish with English subtitles. Showing: 8:30 p.m. April 20, Gold.

Before the phrase "cougar" entered common usage, this 2001 drama followed two teenaged boys smitten with an older woman who joins them on an eventful road trip.

It is essentially a rollicking, joyful film that takes some unexpected turns and switchbacks -- and hits some emotional potholes along the way. -- relish staff