More Than Meets the Eye

Amongst this week's new releases, it's bombs here, deception there and Megan Fox's derrière.

“Quiet Chaos”
The latest offering from Italian megastar Nanni Moretti, this gentle parable of bereavement and the healing process carries with it the kind of heart-swelling easy sentiment just begging to be Americanized into an October tearjerker starring Will Smith and his boy. The Palme d’Or winning auteur hands off the directing duties to fellow countryman Antonio Luigi Grimaldi, but co-scripts and stars as a middle-aged television executive who finds a quiet serenity in his inability to grieve after his wife’s unexpected death that leads him to abandon everything else in his life and focus almost entirely on his 10-year-old daughter. In Italian with subtitles.
Opens in New York.

“Rebirth of a Nation”
More than 90 years after its initial release, D.W. Griffith’s silent epic still stands as a contentious document of cinema and of history. Lauded for its pioneering technique as a cornerstone of the language of film, it’s equally vilified as a piece of racist propaganda. Adding his own original soundtrack, as well as a digitized graphical overlay, and slashing its running time by almost half, experimental composer Paul D. Miller (aka DJ Spooky) presents his own “remix” version of the film, diffusing its distasteful message by taking ownership of it on his own terms.
Opens in New York.

“The Stoning of Soraya M.”
As is so often the case with screen adaptations of literature regarded as “important,” Cyrus Nowrasteh’s take on Freidoune Sahebjam’s novel encounters the perilous quandary of being more concerned with the letter than the spirit of the prose. But few relate gravitas like Oscar nominee Shohreh Aghdashloo, who stars as Zahra, an Iranian woman who recounts to a visiting journalist (Jim Caveizel) the fate of her niece, stoned to death on erroneous adultery charges following a prosecution that would put a renaissance court to shame. In English and Persian with subtitles.
Opens in limited release.

“Surveillance”
Having had 15 years to recover from the unmitigated disaster of her 1993 debut “Boxing Helena,” Jennifer Chambers Lynch (daughter of David) offers a sophomore effort that’s a simple and unapologetically violent B-movie. Lynch delivers a tightly wound story of duplicity and deceit that unravels through flashbacks as a pair of FBI agents (Julia Ormond and Bill Pullman) interrogate a dusty police station full of amoral grotesques over the events surrounding a brutal triple homicide.
Opens in limited release.

“Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen”
Michael Bay gives us his “Empire Strikes Back,” delivering an all-action sequel that’s broader in scope, darker in tone and complete with an all-powerful emperor (The Fallen) to stand alongside Megatron’s Darth Vader. Shia LaBeouf returns as Sam Witwicky alongside almost all of the original cast, with seemingly not even the comic relief safe from harm’s way. At 147 minutes, it’s also three minutes longer than the last one, though reports that the additional footage is comprised of one long, uninterrupted tracking shot of Megan Fox’s behind remain unconfirmed.
Opens wide.

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