Go Memphis

"I've been waiting for this film since the early days of the war," writes Roger Ebert about "Brothers at War," which he calls an "honest, on-the-ground documentary" about American soldiers fighting in Iraq. The Samuel Goldwyn Films release screens at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday at Malco's Stage Cinema, 7930 U.S. 64. Admission is $7, or $5 with military ID. Full story »

A golden statuette is nice, but sometimes green stuff is even nicer. The Indie Memphis Film Festival has been awarded a $10,000 grant from the Oscars organization, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. The amount was the maximum available to Indie Memphis under Academy guidelines, based on the festival’s annual operating budget of just under $180,000. The grant was the first the Oscars organization had awarded to Memphis. Full story »

Memphis, as any concert promoter will tell you, is a walk-up town. So while screenings of "Michael Jackson's This Is It" -- a concert documentary about a concert that never was -- have sold out in advance at a record pace from Hollywood to Bangkok, Memphians will have no trouble finding tickets to the movie, which opened today at a dozen area theaters. Even so, any true Michael Jackson fan should run not moonwalk to the nearest theater. Full story »

Unlike most documentaries with a message, "Good Hair" —Chris Rock's amusing examination of African-American hair culture — invites moviegoers to a conversation, not a lecture. "Good Hair" warns against the perils of chemical relaxer ("the creamy crack," the film calls it); chides working women for spending thousands of dollars on weaves; and charges that "hands off the hair" mandates have decreased intimacy between black men and black women. Full story »

"The Secrets of Jonathan Sperry," which opened Sept. 25 on two Mid-South screens, is itself something of a secret to most moviegoers. Even so, on Friday the faith-based movie began its fourth week at the Wolfchase Galleria Cinema 8 and the Collierville Towne 16, thanks to steady viewership and the support of its local "sponsors," Bellevue Baptist Church and the Memphis Metro chapter of the Child Evangelism Fellowship. Full story »

“Paranormal Activity” proves there is a sucker born every minute, and I mean that in the happiest way possible, because I admire this spooky, creepy, genuinely dread-inducing film. And I am in awe of the marketing geniuses at Paramount, who have transformed a $15,000, shot-in-one-week wonder into an Internet and box-office phenomenon, and the most fan-hyped horror hit since the similarly camcorded and micro-budgeted “The Blair Witch Project.” (Expect a similar backlash, too.) Full story »

"The Grace Card," a faith-based film with Oscar-winner Louis Gossett Jr. that begins production in the Memphis area next week, is seeking African-American extras for a pair of big church scenes to be shot Oct. 17 and 24. Interested parties should e-mail their contact information to thegracecard@ memphiscalvary.org or call 386-8988. Full story »

Director Scott Teems' "That Evening Sun," a deceptive, thought-provoking and intense drama that stars Hal Holbrook as a cantankerous octogenarian who fights to remain on his family farm in East Tennessee, was named Best Narrative Feature at the 12th annual Indie Memphis Film Festival. Full story »

Original, surprising and, yes, lovely to look at, "Lovely by Surprise" is the forgotten Memphis movie. It was shot in early 2006, when interest in local moviemaking was at an unprecedented high. A sort of deranged comedy about a troubled author (Carrie Preston, now a regular on HBO's "True Blood") whose fictional characters seem to break into the "real" world, the movie was written and directed by Memphis-born Kirt Gunn, and shot on location in Memphis and Arkansas. Full story »

On a film festival menu heavy with documentary-style American independent films about troubled relationships and 21st century malaise, finding the ambitious, imaginative, stylized -- and fun -- films of Cory McAbee is sort of like discovering a red velvet cake among the sprouts and tofu at a health food store. Full story »

From its midnight movies (Friday's buzzed-about "Paranormal Activity") to its "Amerindie" auteurs (Chicago-based Joe Swanberg delivers his "Alexander the Last," at 7:45 p.m. Friday) to its celebrations of Memphis music (the Live From Memphis Music Video Showcase at 7:30 p.m. Saturday), this week's Indie Memphis Film Festival could be the most worthwhile in the event's 12-year history. Full story »

On TheBloodshotEye.com: "Paranormal Activity," the most buzzed-about micro-budget horror movie since "The Blair Witch Project," gets an exclusive midnight screening Friday at the Studio on the Square as part of the Indie Memphis Film Festival. The screening will be hosted by celebrity fan Craig Brewer, who used his Paramount Pictures connections to get the movie to Memphis. So far, "Paranormal Activity" has no other scheduled local play date. Full story »

According to movie tradition, a bullet to the brain can drop a zombie. The typically less lethal presence of Bill Murray, however, is all that is needed to stop "Zombieland" dead in its tracks. Usually an onscreen MVP, Murray appears as himself at the midpoint of "Zombieland," in a comic episode that must have seemed cheeky and funny on the page but comes across as smug and winky in the flesh. Full story »

The 12th annual Indie Memphis Film Festival begins Thursday at Malco's Studio on the Square with a pair of superb films, "Shooting Robert King," a documentary about a Memphis war photographer, and "That Evening Sun," a drama with Hal Holbrook that could be described as a Southern Gothic "Gran Torino." Full story »

"How many nameless dead bodies have I stepped over?" Memphis photojournalist Robert King asks himself that dark rhetorical question in the documentary "Shooting Robert King," which makes its local debut Thursday, on the opening night of the 12th annual Indie Memphis Film Festival at Malco's Studio on the Square. Born and now based here, King, 40, is perhaps unsung in his hometown. Full story »