In Bruges - Opens Feb. 8

It isn’t easy for Colin Farrell fans. There’s that bad boy reputation—sexy, yes, but off-putting, too, as well as the terrible scripts he picks (or advisers choose for him). Whatever promise he’d shown in Tigerland or A Home at the End of the World is wasted by his long line of duds. Phone Booth. S.W.A.T. The list goes on.

So rejoice, cult of Colin. 2008 may justify our love of the Irish lothario. First, there was his guilt-ridden Terry in Woody Allen’s uneven Cassandra’s Dream. Now there’s the profane, tragic-comic Ray in Martin McDonagh’s In Bruges —a hit-men-on-the-lam lark that melds McDonagh’s skilled stage dialogue with the visual panache of pleasurable thrillers.

Ray and Ken (Brendan Gleeson) are sent by underground boss Harry Waters (Ralph Fiennes) to the Belgian city of Bruges (pronounced “broozh”) when a London hit kills an innocent bystander. Once settled in a shared bed-and-breakfast room, the men act like warring tourists. Ken immerses in the cultural highlights of the city; Ray—tightly wound and emotionally scarred from the murder—wants to play and forget. While awaiting further instructions from London, they absorb the local color, which includes a drug-dealing sweetie, a dwarf American actor, Dutch prostitutes, jealous ex-boyfriends and the fairy-tale alcoves and canals of the city itself.

In Bruges isn’t great art, but it is crackerjack entertainment. Gleeson and Farrell are the Odd Couple of hit men—fumbling and inane one moment, philosophical the next. And Fiennes raises the film to another level when Harry—who’s only heard off-screen for the first half of the film—arrives in the storybook city. He’s feral and ludicrous. Instead of canceling out the menace, the character’s kooky humor elevates it, while McDonagh transitions the fable-like narrative into a gothic nightmare with the ease of the Dutch masters he admires. It’s an audacious debut.

B+ —Dan Loughry

Oscar Shorts

Live Action Short Films & Animated Short Films

Opens Feb. 15

Ask any fiction writer and most would agree that short stories are tougher to create than novels. Yet when you wrestle the form to your whim, nothing can be more fulfilling.

And so it must be with short-form filmmaking. On Feb. 15, Magnolia Pictures will release a program of the 10 Oscar-nominated live-action short films and animated short films (at the Landmark in West L.A. and Laemmle’s Playhouse 7 in Pasadena; separate admission required for each program).

Of the live-action short films, three are gentle comedies from Italy (The Substitute), Belgium (Tanghi Argentini) and France (The Mozart of Pickpockets), one a devastating portrait of women in a cancer ward (Denmark’s At Night) and a meditative Western from the U.K. (The Tonto Woman). Each are worth your time, though The Substitute plays best of the comedies, and At Night is like Bergman at his most austere and humane; there’s more feeling in it than most full-length features.

The animated short films could not be more dissimilar—in content and execution. France’s Even Pigeons Go to Heaven is like a Pixar short with a metaphysical bent. My Love, from Russia, uses impressionist animation to tell the tale of a 19th-century Russian boy in the mad throes of love—it’s hyper-romantic, highly stylized and gorgeous to watch. Canada’s Madame Tutli-Putli is a creepy stop-motion story of a strange woman on a mysterious train. Peter & the Wolf is a harsh retelling of Prokofiev’s classic from the U.K. and Poland. The shortest of all—Canada’s I Met the Walrus—uses an interview with John Lennon in 1969, by a boy who snuck into his hotel room, as the basis of a pop art explosion. It’s the perfect example of the adage that brevity is the soul of wit.

So check them out, and have a leg up in the Oscar pool at work.

Live-action shorts A; animated shorts B+ —D.L.

The Signal - Opens Feb. 22

Opening strangely with scenes from a cheap exploitation film, The Signal transforms into an extraordinary anxiety-inducing thriller about haywire electronic transmissions that turn almost everyone into crazed killers. Boasting gore galore—and perhaps one twist too many—this trippy indie triptych features three filmmakers (David Bruckner, Dan Bush and Jacob Gentry), each writing and directing an episode that includes the same characters in an ongoing plot.

The story begins with Mya (Anessa Ramsey) and Ben (Justin Welborn) conducting an affair, with Mya reluctantly returning to her husband, Lewis (AJ Bowen)—unsure for how long. Yet, when Mya gets home, Lewis murders one of his friends, prompting her to rendezvous with Ben.

At this point, The Signal shifts into its sarcastic second act, introducing whacked-out characters and some gruesome deadpan comedy—with the emphasis on dead. Clark (Scott Poythress) arrives at Anna’s (Cheri Christian) for a New Year’s Eve party. Lewis turns up as well, and later Ben also enters the segment—his story plays out in the final third.

While there is incredible tension throughout, there is also plenty of smart (and smart-ass) zombie humor—note the amusing scene in which a decapitated head is reanimated. Yet this sci-fi influenced horror movie is really a shrewd parable for the lack of intimacy in communication these days—how people can easily be manipulated by/dependent upon electronic/impersonal transmissions.

As sequences that initially make no sense are later revealed to be fantasies, the filmmakers prove themselves to be very clever guys indeed. Of course, this low-budget shocker is not for everyone—there is some deliciously nasty violence involving an exterminator’s tank, and a bit with a nail gun and a man’s forearm is not for the squeamish. But The Signal provides horror fans with a visceral kick and a message that lingers.

A- —Gary M. Kramer