| December 2 |
- A raunchy gay fantasia from Tel Aviv
- "Antarctica" pushes global gay cinema to new levels of manflesh hotness. But it's basically an Israeli episode of "Melrose Place" with bad lesbian folk music.
|
| December 4 |
- Oscar season's bewildering kickoff
- With warring sets of year-end indie awards on top of each other, who can keep track? We can! Here's who's in, out, hot and not at this very moment.
|
| December 6 |
- A fascist childhood (with naked chicks)
- Fellini's 1973 "Amarcord" blends memory and fantasy into a grandiose, bittersweet entertainment. Sexist and sentimental? Well, duh. It's also wonderful.
|
| December 10 |
- An indie chick, her dog and the 2008 depression
- Will Oscar notice Michelle Williams' pitch-perfect performance as the dead-broke slacker gal who loses her dog in the wrenching, intriguing "Wendy and Lucy"?
|
| December 12 |
- Revolution in shades of gray
- Steven Soderbergh talks about his maddening, messy near-masterpiece "Che," an aloof and ambiguous portrait of the much-loved, much-hated Marxist icon.
|
| December 22 |
- Indies thrive in a dying economy
- There were no "Juno"-scale hits, several distributors went under and the economy's in the crapper. But contrary to all reason, 2008 was a good year for independent film.
|
| December 24 |
- It's a seafood-couscous Christmas!
- Vivid Arab-French immigrant yarn "Secret of the Grain" is a near-masterpiece; fascinating Brecht documentary "Theater of War" describes one.
|
| December 26 |
- War as a "bad acid trip"
- Israeli filmmaker Ari Folman talks about his extraordinary animated documentary "Waltz With Bashir," a trip down the nightmarish rabbit hole of memory.
|
| December 27 |
- The 10 best indie movies of 2008
- Heartbreaking French family saga "A Christmas Tale" tops the list in a strong year for documentaries and foreign-language films.
|
