E-Mail This Article to a Friend Old World charm The 20th Boston Film Festival wraps up

The second weekend of this year’s Boston Film Festival brings us winners from France (Les choristes), Denmark (Green Butchers), Hungary (Kontroll), and the Czech Republic (Zelary), not to mention a Schopenhauer sighting. Here’s the rundown on the final three days of screenings:

FRIDAY 17

DEAD & BREAKFAST

Like its subject, the zombie movie will not die. Matthew Leutwyler’s laughless spoof might slow it down a step or two, however. The usual carload of wasted youths played by inept and annoying actors loses its way en route to a wedding in Texas and stops at a spooky motel. "Ever seen Psycho?" you might ask. The director has, and too many other horror movies for his own good. The owner of the motel, "Robert Wise" (it’s unclear whether Leutwyler is paying homage to that director’s The Haunting or his The Sound of Music), played by a bemused David Carradine (his niece Ever is also in the cast), has conjured up some kind of Buddhist spirit that through various tedious complications turns all the redneck townspeople into zombies. Then the splatterfest begins. The women in the party fare the best, which is to the director’s politically correct credit, but my biggest disappointment is that we don’t get to see the guitar-strumming clown who sings the hoky narrative get his. (88 minutes) Screens tonight at 7:30 and 9:45 p.m. at the Copley Place.

— Peter Keough

***A Phoenix Pick***

IMAGINARY HEROES

"I don’t feel like I fit into this family," Tim Travis (Emile Hersh) confesses near the end of Dan Harris’s debut feature. Who would want to? His older brother commits suicide before the opening titles can finish. His dad (Jeff Daniels) wanders about unshaven in a fog of prescription drug and alcohol, stirring only to be abusive. His mother (Sigourney Weaver) wanders in a fog of bitterness and denial, stirring only to spew venom at the woman next door, with whom she has an unaccountable longstanding grudge. His older sister is away at college, but when she returns for holidays, it’s clear she’s messed up too, with perhaps some incest issues. That may also be the case with Tim and his mom and their intense and ambiguous bond. Tim is a rebel with too many causes, and his family are the ordinary people of the 21st century, but Harris makes of this loaded melodrama a witty, poignant black comedy. Seemingly episodic, it resolves with a series of revelations that are neither manipulative nor contrived. Hersh puts in a career-making performance, and Weaver and Daniels have never been better. (112 minutes) Screens tonight at 7 and 9:30 p.m. at the Copley Place.

— Peter Keough

KING OF THE CORNER

The first scene of Peter Riegert’s feature debut finds his character, Leo Spivak, with his head on the desk, watching as one after another wind-up toy toddles over the edge. It’s an obvious metaphor that points up the film’s main flaw. Leo’s life is one big suburban-dysfunctional cliché. He’s trapped in a dead-end marketing job and in danger of being usurped by young hot-shot Ed (Jake Hoffman, son of Dustin). His still-feisty father, Sol (Eli Wallach), resents being left to molder in a nursing home. His daughter, Elana (Ashley Johnson), is dismissive of her parents and has a long-haired boyfriend to boot. And though his wife, Rachel (Isabella Rossellini), is a saint, Leo still feels compelled to cheat on her with a rediscovered high-school crush (Beverly D’Angelo). The fine cast do what they can with Riegert’s pedestrian script, but it’s not enough. And though Eric Bogosian offers some laughs as an obstreperous rabbi with a weakness for the dog track, his cobbled-together eulogy at a funeral could speak for the movie: "He was an average man . . . maybe even less than average." (90 minutes) Screens tonight at 7 and 9:30 p.m. and tomorrow at 2:30 and 4:30 p.m. at the Boston Common. Peter Riegert will appear at tonight’s 7 p.m. show.

— Mike Miliard

***A Phoenix Pick***

MAN DANCIN’

Clichés could have abounded in this tale of a former tough-guy boxer who emerges from years in a Scottish prison and is forced to reconcile his rough, old ways with a newer, softer side. In the process, Jimmy Kerrigan (Alex Ferns, from British TV’s EastEnders) attempts to distance himself from his pre-prison gangster connections in favor of finding God and defeating corruption. This is, of course, difficult, especially when he’s also dealing with a drug-addicted brother, a new girlfriend, and criminals breathing down his neck. Some clichés do take root here — director Norman Stone pounds viewers over the head with religious metaphors, a familiar (if a convoluted) plot, and some hollow-sounding gangster talk. But Fern’s simple and slightly wild performance provides balance. And Man Dancin’, from its static, dark settings to its sporadic bits of violence, is a lot like Jimmy: simple, wild, and trying to find its way. (114 minutes) Screens tonight at 7:15 and 10 p.m. and tomorrow at 1 and 4 p.m. at the Copley Place. Norman Stone will be present at tonight’s 7:15 p.m. show.

— Deirdre Fulton

ONG BAK: THE THAI WARRIOR

Actually, Ong Bak is the name of the Buddha statue purloined from the Thai Warrior’s village. The latter’s name is Ting, and teaming up with his pal Dirty Balls, he’ll use his Muy Thai fighting skills and whatever else is necessary to retrieve the treasure from the greedy businessman who stole it. Prachnya Pachaew’s martial-arts thriller was a big hit in his native Thailand. In Thai with English subtitles. (100 minutes) Screens tonight at 7:15 and 9:45 p.m. and tomorrow at 3 and 5:30 p.m. at the Boston Common.

— Peter Keough

SATURDAY 18

THE BOYS FROM COUNTY CLARE

When a young player in Jimmy McMahon’s band tries to improvise, he’s stifled. "There’s no jazz in a céilí band," Jimmy tells him. There’s not much deviation from formula in this tuneful, picturesque, hackneyed tale of sibling rivalry and lost and nascent love, either. In mid-’60s Liverpool, expatriate Jimmy (Colm Meaney) decides to return to the country he left two decades ago to compete in a traditional-music contest. His estranged brother John Joe (Bernard Hill), who never left County Clare, has entered his band as well, and the pair wage a faintly amusing war of mutual sabotage as they journey to the competition site (stolen tires, "customs" searches). Once there, the younger people take over, with Jimmy’s gifted flute player Teddy taking a shine to John Joe’s talented fiddler Anne, who may be the only person in the film or the audience who doesn’t know the secret of her mystery parentage. Will the two lovers prevail? Will brotherly bygones be bygones? Anyone who knows how to join in on the chorus of a Clancy Brothers song will have no trouble figuring it out. Veteran director John Irvin plays out the romantic comic conventions dutifully but doesn’t allow much space for the music, jazzed up or not. The best part of the film is the rousing version of "Whiskey in the Jar" over the end credits. (90 minutes) Screens tonight at 7 and 9:15 p.m. and tomorrow at 3 and 5:30 p.m. at the Boston Common.

— Peter Keough