Beyond the Multiplex

"Jindabyne": Five years ago, Australian director Ray Lawrence emerged from total invisibility with the tremendously atmospheric and evocative murder mystery "Lantana." (He hadn't made a film in 15 years.) That was a tough act to follow, and Aussie reviews have been mixed for Lawrence's follow-up. In some ways "Jindabyne" does sound like a repetition of formula: Take an intriguing, not-quite-A-list pair of actors (Barbara Hershey and Anthony LaPaglia in "Lantana," Gabriel Byrne and Laura Linney here), add a murdered woman, a mystery and some closely guarded personal secrets, then unspool meticulously. Hey, you know what? If it's "Lantana 2" I'll probably love it. Adapted from the Raymond Carver short story "So Much Water So Close to Home," this is bound to be one of the season's prestige films. (Scheduled to open in April.)

"Paprika": Summaries of Japanese anime plots always sound like a hyperintelligent child telling you his dreams, and word on the street is that Satoshi Kon's new animated film is more hallucinatory than most. Let's see: There's a machine that lets therapists enter their patients' dreams, but it gets stolen by "psycho-terrorists." (Or several of them do, I'm not clear on this.) There's a kind of superhero-shrink named Paprika, actually the sexy alter ego of a serious, buttoned-down female psychiatrist, who must fight the evildoers. Lots of crazy Dr. Seuss-on-acid dream sequences and outrageous action. Also dancing kewpie dolls, a mini-Statue of Liberty and, in general, the trippiest stuff seen on screen since Hayao Miyazaki's "Spirited Away." It's either your kind of thing or it's not, and I know I'll be there. (Scheduled to open in May.)

"Regular Lovers": A few weeks ago I wrote a short item about the Jacques Rivette retrospective touring the country, and suggested that he was the greatest French director to be almost unknown in America. Well, where does that leave Philippe Garrel, who's made two dozen movies in 30-plus years and is totally unknown in America? Garrel's "Regular Lovers" will get a brief theatrical release this month (his first ever in the U.S.), and by all accounts this idealistic, romantic epic about the Parisian near-revolution of 1968 is one of those movies cinema freaks go nuts for, and other people are insanely bored by. Look for three hours of luscious cinematography, beautiful faces (the director's son, Louis Garrel, is the star), inscrutable imagery and dense conversation, and not much in the way of linear plot or coherent action. Still, if you're one of those people who've sat through the collected works of Rivette, Tarkovsky and Kiarostami -- and I see a few of you out there, waving your hands -- of course you won't want to miss this. (Will open in New York on Jan. 19. Other cities may follow, with DVD release scheduled in May.)

"Smiley Face": If there's a filmmaker anywhere in the world positioned to make a stoner comedy that's actually funny, that filmmaker is Gregg Araki. An indefatigable veteran of the alt-indie scene who spent years making marginal movies for marginal audiences (and I say that with the profoundest sense of personal identification), Araki has finally become a name-brand director after the unexpected success of "Mysterious Skin." I miss the personal notes Araki used to send to critics entreating them to watch his films, but on the other side of the coin there's the delicious-sounding "Smiley Face," in which Anna Faris plays a young actress who mistakenly scarfs her roommate's pot brownies and then has to face her busy day, completely zonked out of her mind. I'd have to say, out of everything on this list I'm the most impatient for this one. (Will premiere at Sundance. No release date is set.)

"Still Life": Chinese director Jia Zhangke's last film, "The World," set in and around a surreal world-landmarks theme park on the outskirts of Beijing, marked him as contemporary cinema's finest chronicler of anomie and dislocation, and also as a dramatist with a keen and sympathetic eye. With "Still Life," Jia's focus is still on the disorienting speed and dehumanizing costs of China's frenzied development. This time the setting is not the reconstruction of the Chinese capital but the construction of the enormous (and, as many believe, ruinous) Three Gorges dam project on the Yangtze River. Jia has never directly addressed political issues in his films, and isn't likely to here. But I think it's safe to assume that his wistful, ironic and almost elegiac sensibility, when applied to modern China's biggest and most controversial construction project, won't endear him to the authorities. (U.S. distribution is still uncertain.)

"Year of the Dog": I still hold out hope that Mike White will turn out to be more than just a medium-hip TV writer and a quirky character actor. I just do, I don't know why. He's written several scripts before, from "Chuck & Buck" and "Orange County" to "Nacho Libre," but "Year of the Dog" marks his directing debut. Maybe this is a companion piece to Araki's "Smiley Face," where the life-changing event is not an unexpected infusion of mind-altering substances but the demise of a beloved pet. Molly Shannon plays a secretary who embarks on a series of adventures after her dog dies; I think we're talking an early-midlife crisis movie, something like a younger "Sideways," or "Shopgirl" without the creepy, plastic-y older dude. Large and intriguing supporting cast includes Laura Dern, John C. Reilly and Peter Sarsgaard. (Will premiere at Sundance and open in April.)

"Zidane: A 21st-Century Portrait": Ninety minutes, 17 cameras, one guy. That guy is Zinédine Zidane, the now-infamous French soccer superstar who ended his playing career with that head-butt in the World Cup final. Directors Douglas Gordon and Philippe Parreno, and cinematographer Darius Khondji, follow Zidane over the course of one game (a 2005 Spanish League match between his Real Madrid team and Villareal, if you care), in real time, in what is reportedly the most amazing sports film ever made. (It's also been called an intimate study of man in the workplace.) I missed this at Cannes, and boy, do I feel dumb about that now. People keep saying that "Zidane" won't play in the U.S., but now that every American sports fan knows who he is, I'm betting that's not true. "Zidane" plays at Sundance later this month; look for it in a theater near you by the time the weather warms up enough for beach soccer.

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