Last year's Milwaukee Film Festival opened with "Blue Valentine," a bleak drama about the break-up of a romance.
This year, it's a bleak comedy called "Natural Selection" that screens tonight at 7 at the Oriental Theatre.
Beyond the bleakness, the movies share another common attribute: strong female leads. This time, it's Rachael Harris, playing the frustrated wife whose husband uses religious reasons not to have sex with her (after a botched abortion as a teenager, she's been told she can't have children).
When the husband suffers a serious stroke (while having solitary sex), he tells her that he fathered a son as a sperm donor. That begins the journey that is the core of this movie, which picked up a slew of honors at this year's South By Southwest film and music festival in Austin, Texas.
Harris' Linda is the reason to watch this 90-minute road trip, as we watch her come to terms with an unsatisfied life. She's best known for memorable, if small, roles in TV and movies. Here, she's the focus of the entire film, and she's completely believable in the somewhat mousy role.
You'll have to get a ticket to tonight's screening, since "Natural Selection" is only scheduled to run one time during the Film Festival. As of Wednesday evening, it wasn't sold out. And if it is, there may be a limited number of "rush" tickets available at the door.
Here's the South By Southwest trailer of "Natural Selection":
As for the rest of the film festival, which runs through Oct. 2, you can track down the printed schedule, or scan the lineup on-line at Milwaukee Film's detailed Web site.
Tonight's new stuff: The fall TV season continues to unfold this week, with some big returning shows tonight, starting on ABC with the 7 p.m. premiere of the rebooted "Charlie's Angels," the new season of "Grey's Anatomy" begins with a two-hour episode at 8 on Channel 12.
- CBS: There's an hour of "Big Bang Theory" at 7, followed by the new "Person of Interest" at 8, and the return of "The Mentalist" at 9 on Channel 58.
- Fox: The second two-hour episode of "The X Factor" features more auditions.
- NBC: "Community" returns at 7, followed by "Parks and Recreation" at 7:30. "The Office" brings us James Spader at 8, and the new (and heavily hyped) "Whitney" fills the 8:30 slot. The new crime drama, "Prime Suspect," with Maria Bello, airs at 9 p.m. on Channel 4.
- CW: "The Vampire Diaries" airs at 7, followed by "The Secret Circle" at 8 on Channel 18.
Speaking of James Spader: There's something creepily intriguing about the promos for James Spader, who replaces Kathy Bates on "The Office."
NBC offers this promo for tonight's season premiere:
Tim Cuprisin is the media columnist for OnMilwaukee.com. He's been a journalist for 30 years, starting in 1979 as a police reporter at the old City News Bureau of Chicago, a legendary wire service that's the reputed source of the journalistic maxim "if your mother says she loves you, check it out." He spent a couple years in the mean streets of his native Chicago, and then moved on to the Green Bay Press-Gazette and USA Today, before coming to the Milwaukee Journal in 1986.
A general assignment reporter, Cuprisin traveled Eastern Europe on several projects, starting with a look at Poland after five years of martial law, and a tour of six countries in the region after the Berlin Wall opened and Communism fell. He spent six weeks traversing the lands of the former Yugoslavia in 1994, linking Milwaukee Serbs, Croats and Bosnians with their war-torn homeland.
In the fall of 1994, a lifetime of serious television viewing earned him a daily column in the Milwaukee Journal (and, later the Journal Sentinel) focusing on TV and radio. For 15 years, he has chronicled the changes rocking broadcasting, both nationally and in Milwaukee, an effort he continues at OnMilwaukee.com.
When he's not watching TV, Cuprisin enjoys tending to his vegetable garden in the backyard of his home in Whitefish Bay, cooking and traveling.
