Indies and Sleepers - Summer Movies 2009

Summer 2009 Indie Sleepers

Summer Sleepers

So you think summer movies are all about ginormous box office blockbusters? Au contraire! There's plenty on tap for those with more, ah, discerning tastes, including new movies from indie directors Ang Lee, Steven Soderbergh, Jim Jarmusch and Woody Allen.

And if you want big-name stars, those are here, too: Robert Pattinson as Salvador Dali, Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Zooey Deschanel as young lovers, Jessica Biel as a saucy race-car driver. Find out what films may be poised to become this summer's breakout sleeper hits.


Summit Entertainment/ Focus Features/ Sony/ Fox Searchlight

'Adoration'

Opening: May 8

Starring: Arsinée Khanjian, Scott Speedman, Rachel Blanchard, Devon Bostick

What It's About: A teenage boy is torn by the bits and pieces of a family history he never fully understood in this new film from acclaimed director Atom Egoyan ('The Sweet Hereafter'). Using the Internet as his forum, Simon (Bostick) disguises his own personal narrative as a news story about terrorism, but painting his parents as the subjects. The boundless parameters of the Internet provide Simon with a massive -- and highly opinionated
-- audience.

More on 'Adoration':


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Sony

'Little Ashes'

Opening: May 8

Starring: Robert Pattinson, Javier Beltran, Matthew McNulty

What It's About: Pattinson plays the young Salvador Dali, a student in Spain who meets fellow artists poet Federico Garcia Lorca (Beltran) and filmmaker Luis Bunuel (McNulty). Dali and Lorca develop a close and complicated friendship, with both men feeling an intellectual -- and sexual -- attraction to the other. Of course, 'Twilight' fans don't care about the plot, they'd watch Pattinson read from a phonebook ... and pay for the privilege.

More on 'Little Ashes':


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Check this out:

• Robert Pattinson talks gossip

Regent Entertainment

'The Brothers Bloom'

Opening: May 15

Starring: Adrien Brody, Rachel Weisz, Mark Ruffalo

What It's About: Rian Johnson's writer-director follow-up to the under-appreciated high school noir 'Brick' is just as original and twice as accessible. The tale of lifelong con men Stephen (Ruffalo) and Bloom (Brody) who set out to scam quirky heiress Penelope (the beautifully zany Weisz) out of her fortune, the film works as a con caper, a sweet romance and a sibling dramedy. But it never cons us into caring about the characters; it elicits our affections honestly.

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Summit Entertainment

'Easy Virtue'

Opening: May 22

Starring: Jessica Biel, Ben Barnes, Colin Firth

What It's About: An American race-car driver (Biel) scandalizes a posh English family when she marries its young heir (Ben Barnes) after a whirlwind romance. Stephan Elliot ('Priscilla, Queen of the Desert') directs this adaptation of the Noel Coward play, so though there won't be any drag queens in this period comedy, the movie itself certainly won't be a drag.

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Sony

'The Limits of Control'

Opening: May 1

Starring: Isaach De Bankole, Tilda Swinton, Bill Murray

What It's About: Hipster auteur Jim Jarmusch's first film since 2005's acclaimed 'Broken Flowers,' his latest enigma has only been revealed to be about "loner/stranger in Spain who's in the process of completing 'a job' that's most likely illegal." Said loner/stranger is Jarmusch favorite De Bankole getting his first major lead, with Murray playing the villain. We think.

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Focus Features

'The Girlfriend Experience'

Opening: May 22

Starring: Sasha Grey, Chris Santos

What It's About: Shot in 16 days in October of 2008, just before the presidential election, Steven Soderbergh's latest follows Chelsea (Grey, in her non-porn feature debut), a high-end call girl who offers her customers the full "girlfriend experience" -- sex, conversation, intimacy. And to those who think it impossible to capture real intimacy onscreen, there are no "actors" here, quite a bit of improvisation and, reportedly, very little sex.

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Magnolia Pictures

'Away We Go'

Opening: June 5

Starring: John Krasinski, Maya Rudolph, Maggie Gyllenhaal

What It's About: A young couple (Krasinski and Rudolph) expecting their first child travel across the country in search of the perfect place to settle down. It's a nice change of pace for director Sam Mendes, who's better known for dark films ('American Beauty', 'Revolutionary Road') than quirky comedies; but the stellar cast (Jeff Daniels, Allison Janney, Catherine O'Hara) and lovely trailer give us high hopes, as does the street cred of the screenwriters: husband-and-wife novelists Dave Eggers and Vendela Vida.

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Focus Features

'Cheri'

Opening: June 19

Starring: Michelle Pfeiffer, Kathy Bates, Rupert Friend

What It's About: It's Stephen Frears' first film since his acclaimed 'The Queen.' Based on a Colette novel set in 1920s Paris about a courtesan's son (Friend) and the older-woman lover (Pfeiffer) he's forced to leave, 'Cheri' promises to be a delicious, sexy bonbon of a film. If you think you recognize the lead actor, you may know him as Keira Knightley's model-actor boyfriend. Yes, he is more than Keira's arm candy.

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Miramax

'Whatever Works'

Opening: June 19

Starring: Larry David, Evan Rachel Wood, Ed Begley Jr.

What It's About: Woody Allen returns to his beloved New York City after shooting four films abroad to tell the story of, well, himself. Sort of. David plays an eccentric man with a number of bizarre love stories tangling up his life, including one with a much younger woman (Wood). Sound familiar?

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Sony