MTV will be airing a Britney Spears documentary, Britney Spears Sets the Record Straight, on November 30th that is said to surprise us all. Through this film, we get a chance to see the real Brit and apparently, despite her happy-go-lucky appearance, she is still having some problems.

To read more about this documentary and about her up coming projects go to bittenandbound.com and hollywoodcrap.com.

If you are, or were, or maybe want to be, a New Kids On The Block fan, then you need to know about this: Vh1’s Behind the Music: New Kids On The Block will premiere this Sunday, Sept 28th.

This is an hour long documentary featuring rare archival images, new footage documenting their 2008 reunion, interviews with all five band members & the people closest to them. Vh1 promises to ‘take viewers on a wild ride “behind the music”‘ as you learn about the unmatched experiences of these 5 “brothers.” This is not another ordinary reunion show…Joey McIntyre, Donnie Wahlberg, Danny Wood, Jordan Knight & Jonathan Knight up close and personal with special interviews from N’Sync member Lance Bass, Boyz II Men, former manager Maurice Starr, plus tour managers and record execs.  Inside information all coming your way!

Learn more here: http://nkotb.vh1.com

Pickings seems slim this week, mostly just a foreign WWII film, a kid’s movie featuring that girl from Little Miss Sunshine, and two documentaries, one about an 88-year-old musician and one about the distant wonders of China. But don’t be fooled just because you don’t see anything fun and exciting like Harold and Kumar. Except for a slightly too childish entry, there is some pretty good stuff out this week.

THE COUNTERFEITERS (2008), Drama/War/Foreign (Austria)

Cast: Karl Markovics, August Diehl, Devid Striesow, Martin Brambach, August Zirner
Director: Stefan Ruzowitzky
Screenplay: Stefan Ruzowitzky, based on the autobiographical account by Adolf Burger

I’ve noticed a strange contradiction in the response that new WWII films generally get. You always hear people complaining about ANOTHER holocaust movie, ANOTHER WWII movie, but I’ve never seen a bad one. Life Is Beautiful, The Pianist, Downfall, Saving Private Ryan, what’s to complain about? Even Jakob the Liar was good. These movies are almost uniformly outstanding, so I say keep them coming. And The Counterfeiters is no exception.

Based on a true story, The Counterfeiters is about the largest counterfeiting operation in history, in which Jews corroborated with Nazis in the midst of the concentration camp era. Superintendent Friedrich Herzog arrests a Jew by the name of Salomon Sorowitsch, but soon forces him and another small group of men to produce fake American and British currency, for the purpose of accelerating inflation and wrecking those two economies.

An ambitious scheme to say the least, so Salomon and his colleagues are given luxury barracks and special treatment for their work. Sounds like a pretty sweet deal, given the alternative, but they are also faced with a paralyzing moral dilemma, because their work strengthens their enemy and prolongs the suffering of their fellow prisoners. Reminds me of the difficult choice that Tony and Sheriff also had to make in Return to Paradise.

You may also remember The Counterfeiters as the Academy Award winner for Best Foreign Language film. It’s worth all the reading!

NIM’S ISLAND (2008), Family Adventure, PG, 96 mins.

Cast: Abigail Bresline, Jodie Foster, Gerard Butler

Director: Jennifer Flackett, Mark Levin

Screenplay: Joseph Kwong & Paula Mazur and Mark Levin & Jennifer Flackett, based on the novel Nim’s Island by Wendy Orr

Abigail Breslin made her feature film debut in M. Night Shyamalan’s Signs in 2002 at age 6, but of course she is now best known as the show stopper from Little Miss Sunshine. In Nim’s Island, a package-wrapped kiddie’s movie if I’ve ever seen one, she plays the part of Nim, a little girl living on a desert island with her scientist father. Their daily life resembles upper middle class life, except for the location. Their home is powered by wind and the sun, but they have e-mail, so they’re not exactly cast aways.

Nim spends a good portion of her time reading adventure novels about the fictional explorer Alex Rover, until one day her father goes missing. Having gotten in contact with Alexandra Rover (Jodie Foster), who contacted them out of interest in the father’s expeditions, Nim manages to coax Alexandra to overcome her fear of leaving the house (ironic, isn’t it?) and begin a journey to the island to help her.

Nim is left to defend the island on her own in a situation which opens the door to all kinds of Home Alone jokes that I promised myself I wouldn’t give in to, although that’s definitely an apt comparison. Remember in Home Alone how you rooted for little Kevin to kick the crap out of the burglars, but they never really seemed to be a serious threat? That’s about the same thing that’s going on here. There’s no real sense of any danger, but younger kids will probably enjoy Nim’s sudden lack of parental guidance and the ensuing adventures.

Also, Gerard Butler, who you know as King Leonidas from 300, plays the part of her missing father. Not much else is going on here, but I expect bigger and better things from Abigail…

PETE SEEGER: THE POWER OF SONG (2008), Musical Documentary, PG, 93 mins.

Featuring Pete Seeger, Toshi Seeger, Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen, Natalie Maines, Tom Paxton, David Dunaway, Bess Lomax Hawes, Joan Baez, Ronnie Gilbert, Jerry Silverman, Henry Foner, Eric Weissberg, Arlo Guthrie, Peter Yarrow, Mary Travers, Julian Bond, Tommy Smothers and Bonnie Raitt.

Director: Jim Brown

88-year-old Pete Seeger has had a long and illustrious and controversial career. He wrote and popularized some of the most influential American songs that have shaped who we are today, but was blacklisted during the McCarthy era. Called before the House Un-American Activities Committee, Seeger refused to name other Communist Party members and he and his band, The Weavers, were immediately removed from the radio waves.

Through a remarkable array of historical footage, this documentary tells the story of his life and its effect on some of our most loved and respected musicians, as well as the lessons that he’s learned from his experiences. Seeger is an astonishing American in the vein of famous upstarts like Abraham Lincoln and Mark Twain, and he shows us that patriotism may mean something completely different than we may have thought. Definitely worth a look for anyone proud to be American, or at least looking for reason to be…

WILD CHINA (2008) Documentary series, 60 min.

Narrator: Bernard Hill

To get your travelling fix, today is released this UK television miniseries that features some of the most picturesque scenery to be found in China, and just in time for the Olympics! Each episode presents a startlingly different landscape than the last and is centered around a real historical figure, including places like the ancient Han kingdom, the Mongol steppes, the Silk Road and the Tibetan Plateau.

Ancient structures and modern power poles in the Tibetan Plateau.

Prominently featured, by the way, is some scenery from the old city of Xi’an in central China, the home of the terra cotta warriors, a famous buried army of life-sized soldiers that was lost for so long (well over 2,000 years) that they became almost an urban legend, a bed-time story that had long since lost it’s believability, until a farmer stumbled upon the soldiers in 1974 while digging a well. Can you imagine??

They are still being excavated, believe it or not, but so far they have revealed almost 800 full-sized horses, 130 chariots and, get this, 8,000 soldiers, not a single one under 6 feet in height and every one with individual facial features. They have been dated to about 210 B.C., and it is believed that the majority remain to be excavated.

And these are, as you know, the soldiers that are featured in The Mummy 3: The Tomb of the Dragon Emperor. The “dragon emperor” is Emperor Qin, who had the soldiers made.

The excavated terra cotta warriors, now on public display just outside Xi'an.

A group of black-faced spoonbills taking flight. In the background you can see the high-rise apartment buildings where many modern upper class Chinese citizens live today.

Your faithful film reviewer on a trip to Xi'an in central China, researching the new Mummy movie, which features the very same warriors standing behind me. You're welcome!