To read more reviews of films playing at this year’s Dallas International Film Festival, click here. Here are today’s new reviews:
Wings of Life (repeats 10 p.m. April 8, Magnolia 4)
Rating: Worth a Shot
Absolutely stunning images abound in this Disneynature documentary (out on DVD later this month) about the interdependent relationship between the earth’s flowering planets and the winged insects and birds that pollinate them. But the film takes our human tendency to anthropomorphize too far by referring repeatedly to this relationship as “a love story” and by requiring Academy Award winner Meryl Streep (the narrator) to refer to herself in the first person as every flower on the face of Earth. — Jason Heid
Man From the Future (repeats 4 p.m. April 12, Magnolia 5)
Rating: Go See It
This Brazilian time-travel comedy is a fun little diversion. A physicist, trying to invent a new energy source, accidentally goes back 20 years, to the very day he believes his life was ruined by a girlfriend who publicly humiliated him. As in Robert Zemeckis’ Back to the Future series, the changes he enacts to the timeline don’t work out quite the way he hoped, and so he must fine a way to pay another visit to the same school dance. — Jason Heid
7 Boxes (repeats 2:45 p.m. April 13, Magnolia 4)
Rating: Go See It
In Paraguay, teenage delivery boy Vincent is desperate for some cash to buy a cell phone with the novelty of a built-in camera (the year is 2005). So he agrees to temporarily hold onto some contraband for a couple of hapless criminals. After Vincent discovers the horrifying truth about what’s in the boxes he’s carrying, he spends one long night being chased by the police, the criminals, and a rival delivery man out to take the merchandise for himself. The intensity of the film’s violent confrontations is tempered by many lighter, humorous moments throughout. — Jason Heid
Post Tenebras Lux (repeats Noon April 14, Magnolia 5)
Rating: Go See It
Winner of the best director prize at last year’s Cannes Film Festival, Mexican director Carlos Reygadas’ work is utterly captivating in its individual moments. I’m just not sure what to make of the sum total of its story, in which literal and figurative demons alter the lives of one well-off family and a man who works on their gorgeous hilltop estate. With a haunting kaleidoscopic effect used on much of the photography and with scenes presented out of chronological order, Post Tenebras Lux effectively represents the notion that our past, present, and future all exist together at once in the folds of our memories. — Jason Heid
Other Highlights Today:
– Look Cinemas will host a special screening of the Tony Curtis and Burt Lancaster-staring classic Sweet Smell of Success. More here.
– In addition to appearing at the screening of I Am Not a Rock Star, a documentary film about a young pianist’s early career, star Marika Bournaki will perform a free concert at the Cathedral Guadelupe, Grand Salon (2215 Ross Ave.) at 9:15 p.m.
Here are the films screening today with filmmakers present:
Kilimanjaro, 4 p.m. Magnolia 5
I Am Not a Rockstar, 7 p.m. Magnolia 5
Rushlights, 7 p.m. Angelika 6
Small Small Thing, 7:30 p.m. Angelika 7
Petunia, 7:30 p.m. Magnolia 4
Iceberg Slim: A Portrait of a Pimp, 9:30 p.m. Angelika 4
Wings of Life, 10 p.m. Magnolia 4
Image: From Wings of Life
