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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 »

"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 »

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 »

Brothers from Belgium, Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne twice have won the Palme d'Or -- arguably the most prestigious prize in cinema -- for best movie at the Cannes International Film Festival. The second Dardenne film to receive a theatrical booking in Memphis (after "L'Enfant" in 2006), "Lorna's Silence" is another of the brothers' movies in which money -- not love or family -- is the literal currency that drives social behavior (marriage, in particular). Full story »

A triumph on every level for debuting director Drew Barrymore, "Whip It" is a whip-smart coming-of-age fable of female empowerment that provides Ellen Page with a worthy post-"Juno" star vehicle and moviegoers with a funny and moving film that compares favorably to "Sixteen Candles," "Rock 'n' Roll High School," "Valley Girl" and other astute but unpretentious artifacts from the last great heyday of teen cinema, during Barrymore's childhood. Full story »

Nonfans on the Internet Movie Database have described Memphis writer-director Kentucker Audley's "Team Picture" as "a complete waste of time" and "a pointless film starring pointless losers." However, the no-budget camcorder slice of Midtown life earned critical kudos for its deadpan humor and convincing characterizations. Even so, Audley wants his new movie, "Open Five," which he recently finished shooting, to appear even more naturalistic and unplanned. Full story »

"It Might Get Loud" rarely does. The "guitar summit" documentary that brings together Led Zeppelin legend Jimmy Page, U2's The Edge and relative young gun Jack White opens with the White Stripes leader constructing a stringed instrument out of wire and a Coke bottle and ends with a rootsy version of "The Weight" rather than a fret-strangling jam. Full story »

Movies opening this weekend include "Fame," an update of the 1980 musical about a New York performing arts high school; "It Might Get Loud," a guitar summit featuring Jimmy Page, The Edge and Jack White; "My One and Only," a period piece based on the childhood of George Hamilton; "Pandorum," in which Dennis Quaid and his crew battle spaceship mutants; the Christian-themed "Secrets of Jonathan Sperry"; "Surrogates," a sci-fi flick starring Bruce Willis; and Francis Ford Coppola's "Tetro." Full story »

The teen memories of famously tan Memphis-born actor George Hamilton provide the unlikely inspiration for "My One and Only," an episodic love letter to Hamilton's elegant and apparently indomitable self-styled Southern belle of a mother, here called Anne Deveraux. (Her actual name at the time of her death at 93 in 2004, after four husbands, was Anne Stevens Potter Hamilton Hunt Spalding, nicknamed "Teeny.") Full story »

One might expect a movie starring Robin Williams titled "World's Greatest Dad" to be a heartwarming family comedy in the tradition of "Mrs. Doubtfire," but without the drag. One would be disappointed, even shocked: "World's Greatest Dad" is a very dark comedy that hinges on the awful relationship between a sad sack high school English teacher (Williams) and his unlikable teenage son (former "Spy Kid" Daryl Sabara). Full story »