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Cairo, Egypt -- 4 March 2007 -- Still photography during shooting and production of the short documentary film "Garbage Dreams" by Mai Iskander. The principal characters in the film are Adham, Osama and Nabil, all garbage collectors in the Manshiet Nasr quarter of Cairo.Photograph by Barry Iverson

Film

Here’s a look at all of our recommended films for SIFF’s fourth

Here’s a look at all of our recommended films for SIFF’s fourth week, June 10 through 14. Follow…

In the Loop: Wait--they're showing a British TV satire for SIFF's gala opener? Not exactly. The creative team behind the BBC's The Thick of It has reunited much of the original cast, added a few Yanks (led by James Gandolfini in the Colin Powell role), and rewritten history -- the lead-up to the Iraq War, though Iraq is never mentioned -- into a transatlantic political farce. I loved it. The movie is talk talk talk, interrupted by a little sex and drinking, then back to the talking, which soon becomes shouting, screaming, and cursing. The Brits are led by Peter Capaldi, who plays a foul-mouthed and thoroughly frightening Scotsman at a British government ministry. We've all heard of the Boss From Hell. Well, Capaldi's Malcolm Tucker is the boss to whom all the underling Bosses From Hell report. Around him swirl doctored intelligence reports, leaks, blunders, and neocon ideologues. The latter fly especially thick when In the Loop jets over to Cheneyland, a.k.a. Washington, DC, where the younger Brit bureaucrats meet their American counterparts. (Look! There's Anna Chlumsky, the girl from My Girl way back when.) Steve Coogan has a small supporting role, but the movie is Capaldi's, Walk the fucking line! he barks at a polite, weak, idealistic MP Tom Hollander, who later asks himself, Is the really brave thing doing what you don't believe? Well, in politics I guess you can convince yourself of anything. (NR) REVIEW BY BRIAN MILLER Paramount: 7 p.m., Thurs. May 21

Film

Here’s a look at all of our recommended films for SIFF’s opening

Here’s a look at all of our recommended films for SIFF’s opening week, May 21 through 26. Follow…

20. Memento (Limited Edition)Posing as the medical file of the protagonist, including pages of a police report, the packaging captures the flavor of the backwards-running thriller without being as confusing. The same can't be said for the discs themselves, famously difficult to navigate without going crazy yourself.

Film

Yes, there are some lemons in the bunch. But even if they’re

Yes, there are some lemons in the bunch. But even if they’re not all great films, these packages…

Anderson directs Phoenix.

Film

Paul Thomas Anderson on The Master

“I’ve made six movies, and I feel like I’m only just finally figuring out how this business fucking…

Phoenix on the beach.

Film

See The Master in 70mm

New releases in the 70mm are relatively rare these days, with most effects-driven movies opting for 3D or IMAX instead.…

Amy (Lynskey) in full humiliation mode.

Film

Hello I Must Be Going: Returning to the Parental Nest in Shame

Kate Winslet we know, but whatever happened to Melanie Lynskey, her co-star in Peter Jackson’s 1994 Heavenly Creatures?…

Adams (pictured with Eastwood) also appears in The Master this week.

Film

Trouble With the Curve: Clint Eastwood Talks to an Empty Chair About Baseball

What a strange thing for an actor to have been rehearsing one’s decline and death for so very…

Phoenix (left) and Hoffman as acolyte and mentor.

Film

The Master: Much Craft, Much Hype, No Resolution

In admitting that “Master” Lancaster Dodd (Philip Seymour Hoffman, offering a new twist on the roiling vulnerability Anderson…

Five of the said 17 girls.

Film

17 Girls: French Teens Get Knocked Up

Set in the small, depressed French seaside town of Lorient, 17 Girls makes a big deal about having…

Siberian teens lined up for market.

Film

Girl Model: Russian Teens as International Fashion Commodity

Although the title of directors David Redmon and Ashley Sabin’s dual portrait of two players in the underage-modeling…

The late French philosopher.

Film

An Encounter With Simone Weil: Remembering the Late French Philosopher

In the abbreviated life of French philosopher and sociopolitical activist Simone Weil (1909–1943), the daughter of agnostic Jews…

The numbers don't work: Radnor and Olsen.

Film

Liberal Arts: Elizabeth Olsen as Campus Lolita

Taking all three jobs as writer/director/star, it shouldn’t be surprising that Josh Radnor is way too kind with…

Dano as reluctant daddy.

Film

For Ellen: Paul Dano as Hopeless Rocker

The method-y, elfin brooder-hipster star of the moment, Paul Dano has four movies out this year, but here…

Trainer Qi practicing his jabs.

Film

China Heavyweight: Boxers Fight Uphill Odds

A paradigmatic “portrait” documentary—the popular sort that eschews cultural information and risk to focus on “how it feels”…

Driving in silence: Duarte and de Silva.

Film

Las Acacias: A Very Quiet Friendship in Argentina

There is no musical score for this Argentine road movie, only the incessant throbbing of a truck’s diesel…

Sarandon and Gere before the fall.

Film

Arbitrage: Richard Gere Goes Broke

Slick and grown-up as Richard Gere himself, this intricate fiscal thriller takes a dead bead on extreme privilege,…

The equine stars.

Film

Wild Horse, Wild Ride: Texas Ponies Need Protection

For George Gregory—one of nine participants in the Fort Worth, Texas, horse-training competition profiled in this doc—the process…

Jovovich (left) does her leather catsuit thing.

Film

Game Boy

The bigger and better mousetraps of Paul W.S. Anderson

The AA founder, pictured when still anonymous.

Film

Bill W: Meet the Founder of Alcoholics Anonymous

The idea that addiction (drugs, alcoholism) is a disease is still scoffed at in some quarters, but what…

The happy central couple.

Film

Planet of Snail: They’re Not Disabled. They’re Married

An unadorned, unsentimental portrait of a marriage, Yi Seung-jun’s documentary celebrates the daily life of an exceptionally collaborative…