Films within Films In another interesting coincidence, three of this week’s new films feature films within films as plot elements. The best one is entirely fake, one is being written as events occur, and one involves a series of home movies you’d never want to take to a place that offers film to DVD transfers. “Argo” is easily the best of the bunch, and one of the best films of the year so far. It’s more evidence that Ben Affleck’s greatest film talent is in his directing rather than his acting, although he acts here as well. It tells the true story of the improbable rescue of a six US embassy employees during the larger Iran hostage crisis. While most of those held were in the embassy i

"Total Recall" Directed by Len Wiseman Somewhere in Hollywood, there’s a studio executive who apparently visited a memory implantation service and acquired a recollection of some kind of clamoring for a remake of 1990’s “Total Recall.” He should get a refund. I missed the early press screening while hosting the kickoff meeting for this year’s Sacramento Film & Music Festival’s 10x10 Filmmaker Challenge guerilla filmmaking program and so I dutifully headed out to the midnight screening. Not only is this not a remake that was calling out to be made, it’s also not a film that seems to have needed midnight screenings – the attendance at mine was more like an early Tuesday afternoon. There w

The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus Directed by Terry Gilliam By Tony Sheppard Capitol Weekly This is a movie that will be seen for two reasons: The movie itself and morbid curiosity associated with the death of its star, Heath Ledger. Ledger had completed “The Dark Knight” and was shooting this when he died of an accidental drug overdose, leaving Director Terry Gilliam with half a movie, no lead actor, and an uncertain future for the project. Gilliam is still best known by some of us as the wacky animator for the original Monty Python shows. But he’s also an accomplished director of not just Python movies, but also “Brazil,” “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas,” and “Twelve Monkeys,” amongst