Down in the Valley

Down in the Valley: Edward Norton and Evan Rachel Wood

Down in the Valley

Cast: Edward Norton, Evan Rachel Wood, David Morse, Rory Culkin, Bruce Dern, John Diehl, Elizabeth Peña

I Siblings Lonnie and Tobe live at the edge of the bleeding sprawl of the San Fernando Valley. One day, a mysterious horseman strolls into their lives. With his folksy-naïve manner and cowboy garb, Harlan Fairfax Carruthers initially evokes a bemused "Are you for real?" from one of their friends. But to Lonnie and Tobe, Harlan's alien behavior seems to be exactly what they need. Director David Jacobson brings a fresh perspective to the city and the ways it functions as a locus of both hopeful reinvention and dark violence. Enrique Chediak's' anamorphic widescreen cinematography uses the striking juxtapositions of the San Fernando Valley, where the Interstate brushes up against what little is left of the Wild West, to both comic and poignant effect. Remarkable central performances from Edward Norton and a revelatory Evan Rachel Wood cement Down in the Valley as both a classic American movie and a thoroughly independent vision.

Signs

Signs: Mel Gibson

Signs

Cast: Mel Gibson, Joaquin Phoenix, Cherry Jones, Rory Culkin, Abigail Breslin

Following the smash hit The Sixth Sense (1999) and the under-performing follow-up Unbreakable (2000), directing phenom M. Night Shyamalan returns to the summer box office landscape that served as the backdrop for his cinematic breakthrough. In Signs, another paranormal outing for the writer-director, Shyamalan explores the eerie implications of a 500-foot crop circle that mysteriously appears on the Bucks County, PA farm of reverend Graham Hess (Mel Gibson). As Hess and his family (Joaquin Phoenix, Rory Culkin, Abigail Breslin) try to take stock of what the sign means, and how its message incorporates into their faith, they start to get the feeling they are not alone in the fields behind their house. Shyamalan re-teams with producers Frank Marshall, Sam Mercer and Kathleen Kennedy, and produces the project in association with his Blinding Edge Pictures banner and Touchstone Pictures.