$9.99 (2008)

A scene from “$9.99,” an animated film by Tatia Rosenthal. Barry Otto provides the voice of the character on the left, Geoffrey Rush the one on the right.
June 19, 2009
Figures Made of Clay in an Imaginary World
By A. O. SCOTT
Published: June 19, 2009

The Israeli writer Etgar Keret possesses an imagination not easily slotted into conventional literary categories. His very short stories might be described as Kafkaesque parables, magic-realist knock-knock jokes or sad kernels of cracked cosmic wisdom. When such vignettes are strung together into a feature — as in “Jellyfish” (2007), which he directed with his wife, Shira Geffen, and now in Tatia Rosenthal’s “$9.99” — they become even more elusive and strange. To watch these films is to enter an eerily realistic parallel universe where people and emotions are at once perfectly recognizable and completely bizarre. More

Dress the Set With Tears: It’s a Wrap

A sign of the recession: 20th Century Props is set to close. More Photos >
By BROOKS BARNES
Published: June 17, 2009

NORTH HOLLYWOOD, Calif. — The rattan sofa from “The Golden Girls” awaits its next role from a shelf deep inside the 20th Century Props warehouse here. Nearby is the futuristic shower Tom Cruise used in “Minority Report” and an armchair that starred with Marilyn Monroe in multiple films. Overhead: Art Deco chandeliers from “The Aviator.” More

Saturday nite

The Trashmen and The Castaways...

Line for the day...

...Mamat Khalid’s “When the Full Moon Rises,” in which a hard-boiled reporter stumbles into a village populated by werewolves, dwarfs and Communists. It’s actually stranger than it sounds. More