Split Screen
Looking at the upcoming crop of summer films, we noticed some striking symmetries between major studio offerings and their smaller, artier cousins. A few double features for your consideration...
IF YOU WANT...tough chicks
At the multiplex: In Wanted, Angelina Jolie is a sinuous gunslinger who teaches novice James McAvoy the tricks of the assassin's trade to avenge his father's death.
At the art house: The bad girl of European cinema, Asia Argento, stars in The Last Mistress as a strong-willed courtesan unwilling to relinquish her lover (gorgeous newcomer Fu'ad Aït Aattou) to his more suitable bride. In director Catherine Breillat's sumptuous 19th-century period piece, sex is a bloody power struggle and love is an undying affliction.IF YOU WANT...'70s icons
At the multiplex: ABBA tunes get yet another spin in the movie version of the smash-hit stage musical Mamma Mia!, with a high-wattage cast including Meryl Streep, Colin Firth, and Pierce Brosnan.
At the art house: Narrated by Johnny Depp, Gonzo: The Life and Work of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson is an engrossing documentary about the wildly innovative reporter whose drug-enhanced dispatches from the 1970 Kentucky Derby and the '72 campaign trail birthed a dangerous new breed of journalism.IF YOU WANT...wintry weirdness
At the multiplex: Having narrowly escaped an icy Antarctic death in the first X-Files movie, Mulder and Scully (David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson) give us the shivers again in the snowbound sequel The X-Files: I Want to Believe.
At the art house: In the must-see Antarctica documentary Encounters at the End of the World, the stunning underwater imagery borders on the paranormal, while director Werner Herzog's conversations with the South Pole's eccentric residents ponder nothing less than the meaning of life. Photo: Jolie: James Devaney/wireimage.com. Argento: Tony Barson/wireimage.com
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