This week's premiere
photo: Tatrafilm
Lost in La Mancha (Stratený v La Mancha) - Documentary by Keith Fulton and Louis Pepe. After spending years trying to get funding for his screen adaptation of Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra's Don Quixote, Monty Python alumnus Terry Gilliam finally obtained the money and prepared to begin filming in 2000. Excited about the project, which was to star Johnny Depp and French actor Jean Rochefort, Gilliam invited two filmmakers to document the production. What they instead captured was its unravelling: Certain cast members didn't show up, Rochefort badly injured his back, flash floods destroyed sets, and the financiers withdrew their funds. In addition to showing the movie's collapse, Lost in La Mancha features a few completed scenes and animated storyboards, currently all that exists of Gilliam's vision for the film.
Other movies playing
photo: Tatrafilm
Ray - Drama by Taylor Hackforrd. Conveniently released a few months after Ray Charles died of liver disease, this biopic chronicles the life of the hard-living American musical genius. Jamie Foxx's performance as Charles won him the Oscar for Best Actor. The movie begins with Charles' childhood, when the poor young southern boy lost his eyesight and then began to devote more and more of his attention to music. It details how he combined elements of blues, R&B, gospel, and country to rise to the top of American music, all the while battling problems with drugs and women.
Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle(Pofajčime, uvidíme) - Comedy by Danny Leiner. Though certainly an improvement over Leiner's previous movie (Dude, Where's My Car?), Harold and Kumar fails to capture the rebellious spirit of the best movies about excessive pot smoking. Instead, it's a tame, occasionally funny buddy movie about two friends on a quest for hamburgers that, like most things experienced after smoking a lot of marijuana, is easily forgotten once something else is put in front of you.
Prepared by Jonathan Knapp
