http://www.alibi.com Film from the Alibi en-us http://www.alibi.com/rss PHP webmonkeys@alibi.com http://alibi.com/index.php?story=31067&scn=film Multi-use art space, coffeehouse and general neighborhood hangout The Kosmos is getting into the movie biz. Kind of. This weekend, The Kosmos will host several screenings of Jamin Winans’ much-praised ultra-indie fantasy film Ink . Ink spins the story of an 8-year-old girl who becomes a pawn in a metaphysical war being fought between the forces of light and darkness. Kidnapped and taken to a freaky alternate dimension, our heroine must fight her way back to the real world and bring salvation to her desperate father. Screenings will take place Friday and Saturday, March 12 and 13, at 8 p.m. There will also be a Sunday matinee at 3 p.m. The Kosmos is located at 1713 Fifth Street NW. For more info, log on to www.thekosmos.org. To scope out a trippy trailer for Ink , head to their doubleedgefilms.com. http://alibi.com/index.php?story=31066&scn=film Lucien Castaing-Taylor and Ilisa Barbash, the husband-and-wife filmmaking team behind Sweetgrass, apparently prefer the term “recordist” over the term “director.” Walking out of the theater as the end credits roll on their latest documentary, you might be inclined to agree. Sweetgrass is less of a manifestly researched and constructed documentary and more of a visual tone poem, patiently recording the waning days of independent, open-range sheepherding in the Big Sky Country of Montana. That isn’t to say that the film is unenlightening. In fact, it paints a vivid, intimate portrait of what life is like for today’s cowboys (or sheepboys, I guess). But the filmmakers accomplish this by doing away with such artificial elements as narration and score. There’s precious little dialogue other than some salty campfire talk, a bunch of crotchety cursing and those incessantly bleating sheep. Unlike March of the Penguins , the film doesn’t try to anthropomorphize its many non-human actors. Instead, for 100 rapturous minutes, we simply sit back and gaze at the wide blue skies and majestic green mountains of Montana. That undulating off-white stream in the middle of it all? That’s a herd of 3,000 sheep owned by rancher Lawrence Allested, which old-time ranch hand John Ahern and high-strung youngster Pat Connolly are annually tasked with guiding some 200 miles to the summer grazing grounds. Castaing-Taylor and Barbash spent three summers in Montana’s Absaroka-Beartooth Mountains pointing their cameras at this disappearing way of life. The end result is something that in no way romanticizes the life of the modern-day cowboy. Bears, wolves and god knows what else sniff around the campsite at night looking for an easy meal. With no companions other than sheep, horses and dogs, Ahern and Connolly fight like an old married couple. Boredom and monotony are constant. The physical toll is brutal. At one point, Connolly whips out his cell phone and cries to his mom about his aching knee. (John Wayne never did that!) And yet, Sweetgrass still succeeds in creating a snapshot of the fading American West that feels impossibly nostalgic and beautiful. Despite the hardships, these tough hombres labor on. Lambs are born, sheep are sheared, tents are pitched, meals are cooked. Watching a lone cowboy corral a chaotic cloud of wooly charges with a few sharp whistles and a couple of sheepdogs, you understand the graceful, almost unconscious art these men practice. That the filmmakers are regularly employed as a professor of ethnographic film at Harvard (Castaing-Taylor) and a curator of visual anthropology at the revered university’s Peabody Museum (Barbash) probably won’t come as much of a shock. Subject-wise, Sweetgrass comes across like Brokeback Mountain minus the gay stuff. Stylistically, though, Castaing-Taylor and Barbash could have been making a film about Kalahari Bushmen. Or Mongolian throat singers. It’s all about careful, quiet observation. Landscape, animals and man blur together in one inviolate chain. There’s nothing pedantic at all about the film. Viewers get to take away whatever they want: A lesson about our country’s complex food chain. An open-eyed elegy for the simple, rural lifestyle. An appreciation for hardworking, blue-collar America. A burning desire to spend the summer at a dude ranch. A renewed enthusiasm for your cushy desk job. A ravenous hunger for some rack of lamb. Devin D. O’Leary http://alibi.com/index.php?story=31056&scn=film Comedy Central gets freaky with its new animated series “Ugly Americans.” Like a lot of shows, “Ugly Americans” follows the crummy work environment and lousy personal life of one average American schmuck. In this case, our schmuck is luckless twentysomething social worker Mark Lilly (voiced by Matt Oberg). Mark works for the Department of Integration, a New York agency dedicated to providing job counseling to fresh immigrants. The twist here is that, in Mark’s world, these immigrants are just as likely to include vampires, zombies, aliens, werewolves and giant chicken people as they are to consist of your average Third World refugees. While trying to help assorted extraterrestrials, monsters and Dominicans, easygoing Mark frequently crosses paths with Lt. Grimes (Larry Murphy), a gung-ho law-enforcement officer who’d rather lock up all the non-humans. Our protagonist is also stuck dealing with his boss Callie (Natasha Leggero), a demonic (literally, mind you) dominatrix with whom he’s having a secret office romance. Mark knows it’s a bad idea to be sleeping with his boss (especially when she threatens to drag his soul to hell), but he’s too much of a milquetoast to break it off. Back on the home front, Mark’s trying to figure out how to live with his new Craigslist roomie Randall (Kurt Metzger). Randall recently “went zombie” for what Mark describes as “all the wrong reasons.” (It involved a girl.) Now, instead of leaving his socks in the living room, Randall’s leaving rotting hunks of his face. Despite its twisted concept, “Ugly Americans” is a surprisingly straightforward sitcom, filled with your usual collection of work-related woes and dating problems—though, admittedly, it boasts a slightly more unusual collection of sidekicks than the average prime time comedy. Look past the talking squids and out-of-work robots, though, and you’ll spot a rather sincere call for diversity and tolerance. A great deal of the show’s humor comes from the utter nonchalance Mark uses to deal with his bizarre clientele. After all, work is work—even if your office mate is a drunken wizard. The show’s detail-heavy art style falls somewhere between the freaky deaky comic book work of Charles Burns and the obsessive doodles of Adult Swim’s “Superjail!” Series creator Devin Clark has worked for years as an independent animator, producing commercial bumpers and network IDs for everyone from TCM Underground to Nicktoons. Series developer and executive producer David M. Stern has a solid background in TV, having written for “The Wonder Years” for three seasons and served as a producer on “The Simpsons” for four seasons. Their partnership proves to be a solid one, creating a series that feels fully formed and ready to go right from the pilot. With its unique concept, clean art style and snappy writing (“Never make a decision with a hard-on and a fifth of Tequila,” advises Mark), “Ugly Americans” has got what it takes to stand out from cable TV’s cartoony crowd. Devin D. O’Leary http://alibi.com/index.php?story=31062&scn=film Thursday 11 “Iced: U.S. Marshals Alaska: Alaska’s #1 Fugitive” (A&E 8:30 p.m.) What, do A&E writers get paid by the colon? “The Underwear Bomber: Detroit Plane Plot” (Discovery 8 p.m.) Best case scenario there, Umar Farouk: You blow up, take out a bunch of infidels and go straight to Paradise, where you are known for all eternity as “The Underwear Bomber.” Friday 12 Shanks (TCM 12:30 a.m.) Would you believe me if I told you that famed mime Marcel Marceau stars in this 1974 horror story about a mute puppeteer who gets revenge on those who have wronged him by stealing a mad scientist’s formula for resurrecting the dead? ... I didn’t think so. Saturday 13 Dynoshark (SyFy 7 p.m.) Honestly, SyFy, I thought Dinocroc was a masterstroke. But Dynoshark ? You’ve surpassed yourselves. Sunday 14 “Minute to Win It” (KOB-4 7 p.m.) Contestants race against the clock to complete stupid little stunts (stacking golf balls, picking up paper bags with their teeth) so they can win a million dollars. Just get on with the televised gladiator fights, already. “The Celebrity Apprentice” (KOB-4 8 p.m) Among this season’s “who the hell?” participants: Curtis Stone, Summer Sanders, Selita Ebanks and Maria Kanellis. “The Pacific” (HBO 7 p.m.) What “Band of Brothers” did for World War II Hitler-busters in Europe, “The Pacific” does for World War II Tojo-fighters in the South Pacific. “Sons of Tucson” (KASA-2 8:30 p.m.) FOX runs out of cartoons to fill out its Animation Domination block, so here’s a live-action sitcom about a fat loser (Tyler Labine from “Reaper”) who gets hired by a bunch of kids to act as their fake dad while their real dad is away in prison. “Hoarding: Buried Alive” (TLC 8 p.m.) Love “Hoarders” over on A&E? Then feel free to confuse it with this new show. “Pretty Wild” (E! 11:30 p.m.) Remember how George W. Bush made President Reagan looked like the very model of restraint and sagacity in government? Well, thanks to celebutard reality shows like this, Paris Hilton is starting to look like the very model of decorum and restraint in Hollywood. Monday 15 “Jessica Simpson’s The Price of Beauty” (VH1 8 p.m.) Jessica Simpson travels the world searching for the meaning of inner beauty. “ TRANSform Me” (VH1 8:30 p.m.) Three transgendered women give ugly ducklings fabulous makeovers—which makes the whole “inner beauty” message of the previous show really fucking confusing. Tuesday 16 “Samurai” (History Channel 7 p.m.) Actor and martial artist Mark Dacascos (sadly, best known as The Chairman on “Iron Chef America”) explores the story of Miyamoto Musashi, the most famous samurai warrior in Japanese history. “Justified” (FX 11 p.m.) A gunslinging modern sheriff (Timothy Olyphant from “Deadwood”) returns to his small Kentucky hometown in this spin-off of some short stories by crime-writing king Elmore Leonard. Wednesday 17 “South Park” (Comedy Central 11 p.m.) The rude toon launches its 14 th season, featuring the show’s historic 200 th episode.