Check out these wonderful films opening this weekend!
And if you’re looking for a great movie to rent, check out the Matt’s Movies list!

I’m not really a connoisseur of dance, but I’m a fan of “First Position,” a new doc that takes you to the highest levels of youth ballet.   The Youth American Grand Prix is an international competition of dancers age nine to 19 that can determine their professional futures.  I was absolutely astonished …

SORRY YOU MISSED OUT MATT’S MOVIES SCREENING!
“Tonight You’re Mine” is just another “rock star meets girl, rock star gets handcuffed to girl, rock star falls in love with girl” story.  Set smack dab in the middle of Scotland’s T in the Park music festival, it captures all the messiness, madness and magic of a single night at one of the world’s biggest parties.  
But this film is definitely a fairy tale.  It takes …

The question I get asked the most is: any good movies out there?
Well, I’ll tell you.
If you’re looking for a great film to rent or stream or download or whatever this weekend or anytime, check out the Matt’s Movies list, a searchable, sortable IMDB list of just about all the great movies we’ve screened over the years.
A few little kinks are still being worked out in the technology, and I’m …

Foreign Film is one of the Academy’s most dependable categories.  You can argue about the winner (though this year I think they got it right), you can argue about the selections, you can even argue about the process and the criteria.  But inevitably, the nominees are always very much worth seeing, and this year is no exception!

Canada, “Monsieur Lazhar”
A lovely little film about a very big subject.  A class of young students …

Clifton’s amazing cafeteria on Broadway downtown closed awhile back, and it was purchased by a happening developer in 2010.  The new incarnation isn’t open to the great unwashed as of yet, but for you…a special sneek peek!
Starting this weekend, they’ll be showing movies set in LA, followed by sets from local musicians and DJ’s. The frequency is TBD but it’s likely to be every other week.
They’ll start THIS SATURDAY NIGHT with Polanski’s …

For more on “Shame,” Elvis Mitchell goes into the mind of director Steve McQueen on The Treatment and Kim Masters talks to the people who sold this risk-taking film on The Business.
“Shame” is the story of handsome, successful young man (Michael Fassbender) whose life has been emotionally eviscerated by his addiction to sex, however he can lay his hands on it (pun intended).  It is graphic sexually and emotionally.
The buzz coming …

Here are two very different movies worth seeing – both are in theaters now!
“Melancholia“ is the latest from iconoclastic, bombastic Danish director Lars von Trier.  I love this man in all his pretentious glory  - like I love the Teutonic blowhard Werner Herzog.  I’m often not totally sure what these people are trying to say, but I love the bluster with which they say it.  And “Melancholia” is a great example of that.  Stunning …

Here’s some of what I’ve seen lately that you should check out this weekend!
Previous blog posts about must-see movies…
Martha Marcy May Marlene
Bombay Beach
Other movies worth seeing…
Margin Call – The story of a fictional brokerage that starts the recent financial Wall Street meltdown when they decide to sell off billions of overvalued assets. Like the meltdown itself, that plot and what it means for the characters (and the country) is a little baffling unless …

It’s not that often that you can say that a movie is really trying something new, and even more rare to say it largely pulls it off.  But “Bombay Beach” is and it does.

The documentary is a impressionistic portrait of three people who live near the fetid waters of California’s Salton Sea.  Born earlier in the century by overflow from the Colorado River, the area was hailed as a new recreational mecca in …

In “The Way,” Martin Sheen stars as a man who walks the historic Way of St. James through Northern Spain in honor of his adventurous son who died along the route.  A 1,000-year-old religious tradition, the path covers hundreds of miles between a small town in France to Santiago de Compostela, Spain, where the Cathedral, tradition says, contains the remains of the apostle James.
I’d like to say that it’s not a very good …