Drowning in Work

America gambles on subprime loans, Mike Judge returns, and Gerard Butler plays games.

“Liverpool”
Continuing his fascination with stoic masculinity and men out of time, “Los Muertos”‘ helmer Lisandro Alonso delivers another elegantly rendered, naturalistic portrait of an individual adrift in his own life. Set against the harsh backdrop of Argentina’s remote Martial mountains, Alonso delicately unfolds the inching narrative of longtime sailor Farrel (Juan Fernandez) and his attempt at reconciliation with his son Trujillo (Nieves Cabrera) and daughter Analía (Giselle Irrazabel), who Trujillo has raised in their father’s absence. In Spanish with subtitles.
Opens in New York.

“Rashevski’s Tango”
Six years is a long time to wait for a stateside theatrical pick-up, but then again director Sam Garbarski’s 2003 story of a family of Belgian Jews is all about keeping hope and traditions alive. A multigenerational story, “Tango” stars Natan Cogan as Dolfo Rashevski, who travels to Israel for his sister’s funeral with his grandson, leaving the rest of the family to wrestle with the inevitable compromises that come with cultural assimilation. In English, French and Hebrew with subtitles.
Opens in New York.

“Sandstorm”
Having sat on the shelf almost as long as “Rashevski’s Tango” after a long festival run, this 2004 feature debut from TV actor-turned-writer/director Michael Mahonen is a thinly veiled allegory of Chinese oppression over the controversial Falun Gong movement. A Falun Gong practitioner himself, Mahonen sets the film against the backdrop of a devastating natural disaster brought about by the bad karma of a nationwide spirituality crackdown, while a guilt-ridden Chinese police officer (Rong Tian) tends to his ailing wife (Zeng Ziyu) and ponders his own culpability in the sandstorm that rages outside their house. In Mandarin with subtitles.
Opens in New York; opens in Los Angeles on September 11th.

“Unmade Beds”
Described at its Berlin Film Festival premiere earlier this year as “neo-Godardian,” this latest outing for “Glue” director Alexis Dos Santos is, as its title might suggest, a deliberately untidy yet touching exercise in youthful abandon. The film follows the parallel paths of, Axl and Vera (Fernando Tielve and Déborah François), two continental squatters adrift in London whose lives circle each other, though they never meet. On the lam from France, the emotionally damaged Vera looks for love, while Axl tracks down his British dad (Richard Lintern) who fathered him on a not too dissimilar trip of his own to Axl’s native Spain some 20 years earlier. In English and French with subtitles.
Opens in New York.

“Tickling Leo”
A recent Jury Award winner at the Stony Brook Film Festival, writer/director Jeremy Davidson’s debut concerns a Holocaust survivor named Warren Pikler (Lawrence Pressman) whose drawn-out mental decline leads to the discovery of a buried family secret involving his father’s role in negotiating the controversial Kastner train that carried his family out of Hungary during World War II. Eli Wallach stars as the Pikler patriarch whose actions reverberate across the generational divide, even touching the life of his grandson Zak (Daniel Sauli). The film itself is crossing many divides with a cross-platform release via theaters, DVD and digital download.
Opens in New York.

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