A Christian Baleout

Tough times call for "Terminator," singing sibling rivalry and Sasha Grey.

All eyes might be on that resort town in the south of France, but we here at home can enjoy another bumper crop of releases comprising both arthouse excellence and blockbuster entertainment. Oh, and the Wayans brothers have a new movie out, too.

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“The Boys: The Sherman Brothers Story”
The unsung heroes (no pun intended) of the Mouse House’s most celebrated animated features, Oscar-winning composers Richard and Robert Sherman wrote the delightful ditties that were the core of hits like “The Jungle Book,” “Mary Poppins” and Disney theme park rides like “It’s a Small World.” Co-directed by their writer/producer sons, this doc charts the Sherman brothers’ ability to make beautiful music together even as their personal relationship was falling apart.
Opens in limited release.

“Burma VJ”
Danish helmer Anders Østergaard’s award-winning activist exposé highlights the extraordinary actions of the DVB (Democratic Voice of Burma), an organization whose members risk their lives to bring international attention to the plight of their countrymen under the military junta. Following the “Man on Wire” model of intermingling dramatic reconstruction with first-hand footage obtained illegally and at grave risk, “Burma VJ” documents the thousands that took to the streets in 2007 to protest for democracy. In English and Burmese with subtitles.
Opens in New York.

“Dance Flick”
Perhaps to clear the air since the “Meet the Spartans/Disaster Movie” duo of Aaron Seltzer and Jason Friedberg have come and gone, the Wayans brothers return to the genre spoofs they popularized with the “Scary Movie” series, only this time with Damien making his directorial debut. “Dance Flick” is very much a family affair, as Damon Jr. stars opposite white chick Shoshana Bush in a send-up of cross-cultural romances and yes, dance flicks, employing the now customary array of gross-out gags and slapstick schtick. One can only hope that if they can at least confine themselves to the genre they are allegedly spoofing, it will be a step in the right direction. See what we did there?
Opens wide.

“Easy Virtue”
After almost a decade on hiatus, Australian helmer Stephan Elliot marks his return with a bright and breezy adaptation of Noël Coward’s somewhat dry stage melodrama, refining it into a cinematic comedy of manners. Jessica Biel tries for serious actress status (which begs the question of why she wastes her time with dreck like “Next”?) as Larita Huntington, a fiercely independent young American widow who arrives across the pond on the arm of naïve aristocrat John Whittaker (Ben Barnes), to the amusement of his father (Colin Firth) and abject horror of his mother (Kristin Scott Thomas).
Opens in limited release.

“Ghosts of the Heartland”
Writer/director Allen Blumberg’s third outing in the big chair is a period noir that revisits the Red Scare from the point of view of a Chinese community wrestling the boot of McCarthyism from their chests. Philip Moon stars as a big city reporter who returns to his hometown of Millville to discover that the corrupt mayor (Michael Santoro) has politicized the growing concern over Communist infiltration and sharpened it into a weapon of extortion and intimidation against the town’s immigrant population.
Opens in New York.

“The Girlfriend Experience”
Rebounding from his grueling four-hour “Che,” director Steven Soderbergh delivers a low-key dissection of our faltering capitalist sensibilities that harks back to both “Bubble” and his 1989 breakthrough debut, though this time out the sex and lies are captured on DV. Set across a jumbled week in the run-up to last year’s election, and brisk at a mere 77 minutes, the film star adult movie actress Sasha Grey as upwardly mobile call girl Chelsea, who offers not just sex but a full range of luxuriant intimacy to a wide variety of wealthy clients at a time when everything is a commodity and commodities are rapidly losing their value.
Opens in New York and Los Angeles.

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