A Town Called Panic is a surreal adventure “for children from eight to eighty” starring three plastic toys: Cowboy, Indian, and Horse.  The premise is simple: Cowboy and Indian plan to give horse a homemade barbeque pit for his birthday, but their plan backfires when they accidentally order 50 million bricks.  This is just the first in many mishaps that take the trio to the frozen tundra, a parallel universe under the water, and even to the very center of the earth.

The cast of “Panic” first appeared in a popular series of short films that were eventually translated into English and aired on Nickelodeon (think Gumby crossed with Monty Python).  The feature-length version of A Town Called Panic playing at the Majestic this week had the rare privilege of being accepted into last year’s Cannes Film Festival along with Disney/Pixar’s UP!.  Nevertheless, the film has the distinction of being the only stop-motion film ever to screen at the worlds biggest film festival.

The team behind A Town Called Panic has made an art form out of their distinctive approach to comedy and animation.  The cast is comprised exclusively of the most basic children’s toys.  You’ll find no detailed renderings of Mr. Potato Head here a la Toy Story, but you’ll still find the nostalgia of the toy box along with pastoral settings instantly disrupted by rock ‘n’ roll sensibilities, absurd dialogue, and a profoundly silly delivery that makes every character sound like they’ve just siphoned all the helium out of a birthday balloon into their lungs.  In essence, A Town Called Panic is unlike any animated vision you’ve ever seen.

The film has two directors, Stéphane Aubier and Vincent Patar, who met at a Belgian art academy in the 1980s.  When asked about the inspiration for their unique brand of zany comedy, Patar said it comes from anything the duo sees and finds amusing.  “It’s the little details of daily life that nourish our work,” he says.  “What you see in A Town Called Panic is a good indication of what we’ve always set out to do. By using a relatively simple setting and a standard but versatile technique, we have the total freedom to create a world of our own.”

The simple-looking Cowboy, Indian, and Horse inhabit the world Aubier and Patar have created and Patar said they found inspiration for these characters almost by accident.  “We hit on the idea while visiting flea markets and garage sales on Sundays,” he said.  “Because dinosaurs and the figurines from manga comics were all the rage, kids had lost interest in older, basic toys like cowboys and Indians and farm animals. So we decided to rescue these poor orphans—and there sure were a lot of them. The origins are as silly as that!”  Aubier added that Cowboy and Indian essentially had to cooperate with each other since they were stuck together in the toy chest.

Though the humor of A Town Called Panic won’t be lost on Americans, the directors note that it does have a distinctly Belgian flare.  Patar muses on what aliens might think if they found the duo’s films in the ruins of human civilization: “If these aliens found our films, we think they’d assume we’re slightly retarded or else absolute geniuses. Obviously, their interpretation would depend on how intelligent and sophisticated they are.”

And there you have it.  A Town Called Panic is playing at the Majestic this week (along with last week’s compelling AEC pick Police, Adjective) and it is not to be missed.

A Town Called Panic
(part of the AEC Independent Film Series)
Directed by Stéphane Aubier and Vincent Patar
Not rated
Running time: 75 minutes

Aniston and Gerard Butler, who inhabits the macho he-man role to a well-fitted T, are in this film simply because they are attractive, able professional actors who could probably play the love-hate-love plot progression in their sleep.

The basic premise of the film is that Butler is a bounty hunter who has to capture his ex-wife, who then escapes and tries to solve a murder.  Sadly, that’s the most coherent and believable part of the plot (we won’t even get into the Vegas “let’s turn $500 into $10,000 at the craps table and then I’ll take off my shirt” moment with Butler).

However, the modern rom-com is less and less about the actual story and more about watching attractive people trade witty banter and overcome the obstacles thrown at them to rediscover their true love.

Both Aniston and Butler are high up on the attractive scale, and have an amiable chemistry, so if you are looking for some light escapism at the theater this weekend or need a good choice for a date movie, you shouldn’t be disappointed.

Just don’t except anything more substantial than cinematic cotton candy that will be forgotten soon thereafter.

The Bounty Hunter
Starring: Gerard Butler, Jennifer Aniston
Director: Andy Tennant
Rating: PG-13

Described as a “black comedy,” Police, Adjective concerns a young policeman assigned to investigate the relatively minor case of three high school kids who are suspected of smoking and selling hashish. His sense of justice is evoked when he realizes that the punishment, if the kids are arrested, is likely to be far more “than fits the crime” under Draconian Rumanian law.

But this film is not in any way a traditional thriller, but more an exercise in philosophical and etymology, as the policeman engages in debates with his wife, and ultimately his superior, about what words mean and when.

Again, thanks are due to the Arts & Education Council for bringing in yet another superb work that would not be seen in Chattanooga without the Independent Film Series. See this one while it’s here at the Majestic through March 25.

• Like him or loath him, you cannot deny the uniqueness of director Tim Burton’s vision. There must be quite a few “likers”, as his Alice in Wonderland had one of the biggest openings ever last weekend.

However, reviews have not generally been kind, as in this comment in the New York Observer: “It might be time for Johnny Depp and Tim Burton to start thinking about seeing other people. Alice in Wonderland, their seventh film together, is so thoroughly soul-deadening and laborious that the prospect of an eighth collaboration feels like the sword of Damocles.”

Those who have liked it have praised the outrageous look, Danny Elfman score, and Helena Bonham Carter’s completely insane Red Queen.

• Keep your eyes open for March 19’s opening of Repo Men (not to be confused with the very good 1984 cult film Repo Man, starring Emilio Estevez). With an all-star cast, including Jude Law, Forest Whitaker and Liev Schreiber, this is another action film set in the future, but with an interesting twist.

As described in one preview: “In this future, humans have extended and improved their lives through highly sophisticated and expensive mechanical organs. The dark side of these medical breakthroughs is that if you don’t pay your bill, “The Union” sends its highly skilled repo men to take back its property…Former soldier Remy is one of the best organ repo men in the business. But when he suffers a cardiac failure on the job, he awakens to find himself fitted with the company’s top-of-the-line heart-replacement, as well as a hefty debt. But a side effect of the procedure is that his heart’s no longer in the job.”

Police, Adjective
Rated R, Starrring: Dragos Bucur, Vlad Ivanov, Irina Saulescu
Running Time: 113 minutes
Alice in Wonderland
Rated PG, Starrring: Johnny Deep, Helena Bonham Carter
Running time: 1 hour, 49 minutes
Repo Men
Rated R, Starrring: Jude Law, Forest Whitaker, Liev Scheiber
Running time: 111 minutes

In Green Zone, he reteams with director Paul Greengrass (The Bourne Supremacy, The Bourne Ultimatum) in a taut military action-thriller as an Army officer who is forced to go rogue while searching for weapons of mass destruction in an unstable region. Greengrass is at the top of his game, staging both adrenaline-laced action sequences and quiet dramatic moments with equal skill, while Damon brings a believable intensity to his role.

It also helps that cinematographer Barry Ackroyd shows us an Iraq demolished by attacks that are often unjustifiable and captures the scenes with the stark intensity of a combat photographer.

The conflict in Iraq has been dealt with in a steadily growing number of films in recent years, the most notable recently crowned Best Picture The Hurt Locker. Greengrass and Damon capture much of the intensity of that movie and add in several layers of moral and political ambiguity to create a very enjoyable film, although it will not be surprising to see it labeled among certain circles as an anti-war film.

While it shouldn’t be seen as such, it does blur the lines between right and wrong and good and evil in a far more realistic way than many other, more jingoistic films have done in the recent past.

Green Zone
Starring: Matt Damon, Amy Adams
Director: Paul Greengrass
Rating: R

This week’s selection in the Arts and Education Council’s Independent Film Series is That Evening Sun, an unvarnished piece of Southern grit shot in the summer of 2008 in Knoxville and starring the great Hal Holbrook (Into the Wild) in a career-defining performance.

Based on William Gay’s short story “I Hate to See That Evening Sun Go Down”, That Evening Sun is the tale of Abner Meecham, an aging Tennessee farmer spending his latter years in a desolate nursing facility.  His dissatisfaction is written unmistakably in the furrow of his brow and it comes as no surprise when he picks up his bags and starts a trek to a destination only he knows.

The path ends at his old farm, where he suspects he can live the rest of his days in relative peace, but he soon discovers that his lawyer son has leased the land to Lonzo Choat (Ray McKinnon), one of the family’s oldest rivals.  Choat tells the old man to get off the property, but Meecham is quite clear about his newfound intentions: “If you think you can buy a farm this size with food stamps, you’re mighty mistaken,” he says before defiantly moving into the tenant shack next to the main house, thereby pouring gas on the fire of family tensions.

That Evening Sun is populated by characters the director, Scott Teems, has the utmost affection for.  The gruff, beer-guzzling Lonzo Choat is introduced as a shiftless loafer who controls his family (Carrie Preston and Alice in Wonderland’s Mia Wasikowska) with a rod of iron.  His hatred for Abner is unmitigated, but he has his reasons (not that they’re good ones).  Meecham has his reasons, too; his enmity with the Choat clan is old and lasting, but he’s also grasping vigorously for the past and the memory of his wife whose loving touch he cannot forget.

Revenge is in the cards for Meecham and Choat, and many stories like this end in tragedy by means of a fell swoop of violence and rage.  That Evening Sun has violence (although most of it happens off-screen) and there’s a due share of rage, but Scott Teems’ film offers something more redemptive in its final act.

No, That Evening Sun is not a buoyant, rags-to riches, wink-and-a-smile sentimental tale ending with a music montage of smiling faces and playful children. This redemption relies on what Flannery O’Connor once called “the almost imperceptible intrusion of grace”, the likes of which so often hinges on a single momentary action or a solitary hopeful image rising from a cesspool of darkness.

One of the unfortunate aspects of That Evening Sun’s limited distribution is that Hal Holbrook was not recognized in this year’s Oscar nominations.  Though he took home a statuette for Into the Wild two years ago, Abner Meecham is a role that Holbrook sinks into with body and soul. Because That Evening Sun is a distinctly Southern film, The Association for Film and Television of Greater Chattanooga (AFFT) will be hosting a question-and-answer session with the film’s Executive Producer Larsen Jay immediately following the 7 p.m. showing this Friday evening.

Jay is president of Double Jay Creative (Knoxville) and Dogwood Entertainment (Los Angeles) and hopes to see Tennesseans contribute to the AFFT, the state’s first and only political action committee for those who work in film, television, or music.  Jay is challenging the community to contribute to this cause and he will match all contributions up to $500.

That Evening Sun is stunning drama, but it also shows that notable Southern filmmaking is on the upswing.   It is a valiant and graceful leap in the right direction for independent filmmaking in Tennessee and demands to be seen not only by lovers of Southern drama, but by anyone interested in furthering the arts in our region.

That Evening Sun
(part of the Arts & Education Council’s Independent Film Series)
Directed by Scott Teems
Starring Hal Holbrook, Ray McKinnon, Mia Wasikowska, Barry Corbin
Rated PG-13
Running time: 110 minutes

Which presents a problem that will become more and more common for all film reviewers as we face a paradigm shift in theatrical filmmaking.  The advent of modern 3-D, which was launched fully into the film-going mainstream with Cameron’s Avatar, takes its next major step with Tim Burton’s eagerly anticipated Alice in Wonderland.

Teaming up with his longtime acting muse Johnny Depp, and his own real-life love interest Helena Bonham Carter, Burton’s Wonderland is a visual delight even in 2-D that easily rivals any previous version of Wonderland ever committed to celluloid.

The characters are brilliantly mesmerizing, the colors a riot of delight and near hyperactive confusion, and some of the supporting roles engage in scene-stealing such as hasn’t been seen since the glory days of ’70s all-star disaster films. For Alice in Wonderland actually owes a debt to those films, filling the screen with well-known faces (albeit costumed and makeup-ed within an inch of their lives) that seem more concerned with being seen than in actually advancing a coherent story.

The story itself is new: taking elements from both Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There, Burton has crafted a tale of a 19-year-old Alice who returns to the magical world of her childhood adventure, where she reunites with her old friends and learns of her true destiny: to end the Red Queen’s reign of terror.

Will you want to see it?  Yes.

Should you see it?  Of course.

Will it make any sense after you leave the theater?  Well…that may entirely depend on how close you are to the imaginative world of Tim Burton

Alice in Wonderland
Starring: Johnny Depp, Helena Bonham Carter, Mia Wasikowska, Anne Hathaway
Director: Tim Burton
Rating: PG

Leave it to director Kevin Smith to bust that theory by throwing a clean-headed Willis into a tepid, by-the-numbers, opposites-detract buddy-cop film with a highly appropriate title, Cop Out.  For Smith, a director with some of independent filmdom’s most provocative films in his oeuvre (see: Clerks, Chasing Amy, Dogma), this film is indeed a cop out on several levels.

That’s not to say it’s a bad movie, per se.  The acting is what you expect, the direction is smooth and professional, and the humor is, well…mostly humorous, at least for the level of humor one would expect from this type of film.

The biggest problem is that you expect more from these three.  Willis has been coasting for years and needs a juicy dramatic role to get his mojo back; Morgan is a gifted young comedian who seems unsure of his talent or what type of film career he really wants; Smith needs to get out of the big studio system as soon as humanly possible and go back to making his type of movie, not Hollywood’s type of movie.

Sad to say, chances are the film will be financially one of the biggest successes of Smith’s career, which means it’s highly likely he’ll keep making these types of films until he either gets tired of them or realizes he’s wasted his own talent on formula bubble gum.

Cop Out
Starring: Bruce Willis, Tracy Morgan
Director: Kevin Smith
Rating: R

Harry Caine and Mateo Blanco (Lluís Homar) are blind; they are also the same person.  Mateo Blanco was a popular film director in Spain, but circumstances forced him to adopt a new persona.  “Half-joking,” he says via narration, “I came up with a pseudonym for myself, Harry Caine, an adventurer who, as fate would have it, became a writer.”  With the help of his agent’s son Diego, Harry now writes scripts instead of directing.  It is to Diego that he tells the long story of how and why he ducked out of the movie business and changed his name.

Blindness is an overworked theme in the movies, but Broken Embraces doesn’t misuse it.  After a brief snippet of documentary footage, the first image of the film we see is a close-up of an eye.  The eye belongs to an acquaintance of Harry Caine, and in it we catch our first glimpse of him.  This is just one of many examples of Almodóvar telling a blind man’s story from many vantage points.  Harry Caine narrates Broken Embraces, but we see all—from details of the story Harry does not know about to images from a documentary camera carried by one of the film’s antagonists.  Though melodramatic in plot, this film is an elegant visual tapestry woven by a master craftsman.

The emotional center of Harry Caine’s story, told in flashback, is Lena (Penélope Cruz) who works for a wealthy businessman twice her age named Ernesto Martel.  Tragedy strikes; Martel pays for Lena’s father’s hospital bill, but forces her to become his mistress.  Though she is captive inside his sprawling mansion, Lena still wants to act in films and Martel gladly backs the new Mateo Blanco production, Girls and Suitcases, which bears resemblance to Almodóvar’s own Woman on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown, so that she may have the lead.

Lena is entranced with Mateo’s authenticity from the first day of shooting and the two begin a secret affair.  Ernesto is suspicious and enlists his alienated son, the film’s most unsavory character, to spy on the lovers with a video camera.

Yes, Broken Embraces has nearly all the overwrought plot details of a Telemundo soap, but that is precisely this director’s intention.  It is the way he works and his artistry is in making stately what other directors would keep paltry.

Consider the way he shows Lena’s relationships with the two men in her life: when Mateo and Lena make love for the first time in her dressing room, they are frenzied and wild, biting at each other, groaning in the throes of passion; when Lena is forced to lay beneath Ernesto after he takes her away from filming, the two are entirely wrapped in a white sheet atop the bed, the aged Ernesto whimpering to a tired climax before Lena rolls out from the canopy disgusted and dehumanized.

Ernesto is a monstrous old man, the source of Lena’s affliction.  Mateo sees this and attempts to rescue her even as the quality and integrity of his film is put on the line.  Beauty, tragedy, death, and blindness ensue in equal measure.

Broken Embraces is the fourth film Almodóvar has made with Penélope Cruz and it is with him that she does her best work.  Many directors have cheapened and exploited Cruz’s beauty (last year’s forgettable Nine comes to mind), but Almodóvar’s brilliance behind the camera enables Cruz to give one of her finest performances.  This is real acting, full of passion, sensitivity, and humor.

Though Almodóvar’s films are intensely story- and performance-driven, watch any of them closely and you’ll notice that almost every image is layered with deeper meaning.  See the way his camera approaches characters at just the right moment of emotional catharsis or the profound way in which he uses reflections.  Unlike many directors, he is unafraid of the wide shot and Broken Embraces has many that will steal your breath away.

The last line of the film, spoken by the blind Harry Caine as he sits at a film editing bay, is what you might call a zinger—the type of poetic assertion that finalizes many films and forces the audience to think about the story they’ve just seen in a different light.  Sometimes it’s a cop out, but I think there’s something to this one.

Despite the brooding melodrama, Almodóvar has finally made a film that reflects briefly on his own art.  He seems to be thinking of what might happen if his embrace of the film medium were broken by blindness…or perhaps something worse.

The answer is, of course, nothing.  The show must go on at any cost, for images are Almodóvar’s life.

Broken Embraces
Part of the AEC Independent Film Series
Directed by Pedro Almadovar
Starring Lluís Homar, Penélope Cruz
Rated R
Running time: 1 hour, 51 minutes

In his mid-thirties, the babyfaced DiCaprio often comes across as a boy playing make-believe wearing his father’s clothes.  Still, at the hands of a gifted director he is often able to overcome his own movie-star looks. So it seems even more perplexing that his latest release, Shutter Island, fails so miserably.

Martin Scorsese is inarguably a phenomenally talented filmmaker, but it appears he was merely phoning it in this time around.  DiCaprio plays a 1950’s-era U.S. marshall looking into the disappearance of a murderess who’s escaped from a hospital for the criminally insane and is presumed to be hiding on remote Shutter Island.

To put a fine point on it, the role is completely unbelievable.

Worse yet, the film is a messy hodge-podge of B-movie insane asylum clichés that have been done and overdone many times over the years.  It would be safe to say that if it weren’t for the involvement of Scorsese and DiCaprio, this would have been a straight-to-DVD release—if it had even been made in the first place.

Sure, the film is very well shot—the cinematography is excellent—and the supporting cast does a workmanlike job.  It’s always a delight to spot Max Von Sydow getting work in a feature release, and Ben Kingsley is as reliable as ever.

But overall, this is one island where the shutters needed to stay closed.

Shutter Island
Starring: Leonardo DiCaprio, Mark Ruffalo, Ben Kingsley, Max Von Sydow
Director: Martin Scorsese
Rating: R