monitorTHIS! - February 2009 - (Page 5)

Those of you who enjoyed Paul Giamatti’s corrosive wine snob in Sideways should appreciate this populist yarn. Alan Rickman plays a sommelier in the mid ’70s bent on proving to Parisians that great wine isn’t mutually exclusive to France. It’s sort of like The Karate Kid if the Napa Valley were DanielSan. Or not at all. Freddy Rodriguez, Eliza Dushku, Bill Pullman and Dennis Farina head up an all-star cast. In Stores February 3 20tH Century Fox Bottle Shock in stores This follow-up from the director of The Constant Gardner was shockingly D.O.A. at the box office—and, no, we don’t think the protest from the American Council of the Blind did it in. Adapted from José Saramago’s novel, the film focuses on the degeneration of societal mores after the bulk of a city is stricken with blindness and herded to quarantine areas. Mark Ruffalo and Julianne Moore co-star as husband and wife. In Stores February 10 MiraMax Blindness Religulous feb 17 W he n he ’s not e nragi ng the entire political spectrum on Real Time or reruns of Politically Incorrect, Bill Maher is an advisory board member of secular charitable foundation the Reason Project. In other words, Maher’s no fan of organized religion—hence this documentary (from the director of Borat) sending him across the globe to confront fundamentalists of all beliefs. It’s uproarious, scathing stuff, regardless of your opinion on the abrasive tour guide. Lionsgate The creative minds behind this one may have thought they had another Cloverfield on their hands, but audiences didn’t agree. If you can suppress your gag reflex through 90 minutes of trembling handheld, you’ll discover a pretty fun horror flick. A documentary on late-night firefighters goes horribly awry when tenants at an L.A. apartment complex come down with a rabies-like disease and the good guys are penned in with the bad. In Stores February 17 sony PiCtures Quarantine As expected, file this one under “adult entertainment”—not for what your dirty mind might suspect, but off-the-charts ultraviolence. Guy Ritchie discovery Vinnie Jones is a mute, nattily-clad, late-night subway rider who transfixes a young photographer striving to produce grittier work. He gets “gritty” and then some, as horror icon Clive Barker turns the train into a veritable slaughterhouse. It’s a gripping ride until a (forgivably) absurd final act. In Stores February 17 Lionsgate The Midnight Meat Train Unfairly or not, this will forever be known as the one where 12-year-old Dakota Fanning’s protagonist is raped by a milkman. We’re in the “unfairly” camp; Jodie Foster’s preteen pro dealt with comparable depravity in Taxi Driver, regarded as a classic despite often vile subject matter. Envelope-pushing writerdirector Debora Kampmeier focuses on young Fanning’s attempt to stave off the pain of abuse with a healthy dollop of the blues. In Stores February 3 Hannover House Hounddog [ february 2009 + monitorthis! + 5 ]

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