My family, including my 75-year-old mom, love the Loft's Tucson International Children's Film Festival—now in its fourth year. We missed the opening weekend due to vacation, but plan to catch up this week.

The festival continues through Sunday, Aug. 1. Every day this week you can see a movie, 10 a.m., for free. We're also happy Mrs. Tiggy Winkle's Toy's staff is back hosting and bringing special prizes.

See you Sunday for The Neverending Story. They don't mention any special contests for this one, but there's a guy who works at an undisclosed Circle K I frequent who happens to look like the Luck Dragon. I'd love to bring him.

Oh, and here's a little thing I found on what happened to the Neverending Story kids and other cast members.

Remaining schedule:

Wednesday, July 28: THE INDIAN IN THE CUPBOARD (1995, 96 mins., rated PG), with free copies of the book for those in attendance (while supplies last)!

Harkins Tucson Spectrum 18, 5455 S. Calle Santa Cruz, will screen Smile Til It Hurts: The Up With People Story the following days and times:

Tuesday, July 27 and Wednesday, July 28: 7:10 p.m.
Thursday, July 29 through Saturday, July 31: 11:15 a.m. and 2:15 p.m.

Up With People formed in 1965 as an international singing group. They have performed at four Superbowl halftimes and featured actress Glenn Close in earlier years. The singers set out to change the world with cheery songs, but their foundation stressed right-wing political ideals and religious views. Up With People is "... a critical and objective analysis of the organization in a historical and political context ...," says filmmaker Lee Storey.

Read a review here.

Here's a trailer of the upcoming film Red starring Bruce Willis. This was shown at Comic-Con, which runs through Sunday in San Diego.

Birdemic is playing at the Loft Cinema tonight and tomorrow. Check it out if you're a fan of really, really bad movies. Details here.

Also opening this weekend: Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work, the Joan Rivers biopic. James DiGiovanna tells you why you should see it here:

Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work follows Ms. Rivers for one year of her fading career as she desperately clings to some hope of recognition, fame and happiness. It's a tale of someone who was once 10 steps from the top, and then fell down a few steps, and now can't get over it. It's the tale of a woman who says of a tribute to the late George Carlin, "It's important for me, because I'm included." It's the story of a woman who says, without irony, "I thank God every time I step into a limousine. Seriously, I stop, and I thank God." And she says this after riding in a limo, while wearing furs, as she went out to distribute meals to the less-fortunate. Like, what do you do when Joan Rivers shows up at your cramped apartment, carrying some microwaved turkey and grooming an enormous mink?

So this is the story of a woman who is not precisely likable, nor exactly self-aware about her self-involvement. But still, in 84 minutes, Rivers becomes, if not beloved, at least charmingly needy and sad.

If you haven't yet seen The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo at the Loft Cinema, you'd better hurry. The run ends Thursday. Details here.

We'd rate the mystery thriller as one of favorite flicks of the year—and we're usually not all that patient with subtitles. TW critic James DiGiovonna gave it high marks as well:

This film in most places is titled Men Who Hate Women, and, indeed, it features several such men. Uber-hacker and investigator Lisbeth Salander (Noomi Rapace) is investigating journalist Mikael Blomkvist (Michael Nyqvist) when she gets a new parole officer. Unlike her previous guardian, this one wants to control her finances and brutally rape her. Disagreeing with his methods, she sets up a sting operation and then gets sucked into a 40-year-old mystery on a remote Swedish island. Misogynists, Nazis and a family of evil industrialists conspire to stop her and Blomkvist from finding out the truth in this incredibly tightly plotted and gorgeously photographed noir film. It seems the mystery movie has moved overseas, with France and now Sweden becoming the experts in the form pioneered by Americans, since we’ve left it behind to focus more on 3-D movies about alien super-Smurfs. But that’s OK: Our European students have learned well, and now present this perfect gem as a gift to the country that inspired them. Or at least that’s how I like to think of it.

The Loft Cinema presents its annual Independence Day Team America sing-along on Sunday, July 4. What better way to celebrate our nation's birthday? Details here.

In May, The Range reported that filmmaker LuisCarlos Romero-Davis' award-winning documentary 389 Miles: Living the Border, was banned by the Nogales (Sonora) City Film Council from the city film festival. Romero-Davis was searching for screening opportunities in Arizona.

You can see the banned documentary this weekend, on Saturday, June 26, at 2 and 7 p.m. at ZUZI's Theater, 738 N. Fifth Ave. Cost for the 2 p.m. show is $12, and $20 for the 7 p.m. show, which includes a special reception with live music and dance by ZUZI! Dance Company and musician Pablo Peregrina and Friends. There will also be a Q&A session with Romero-Davis. All proceeds benefit Humane Borders.

For more info, call 629-0237 or 398-5053.

Tonight at the Loft Cinema: Best Worst Movie, with director Michael Paul Stevenson on hand to talk about the film. And if that's not enough to get you out of the house, Troll 2—the best worst movie that Best Worst Movie is all about—shows at 10 p.m. tonight and tomorrow. Details here.

The best film critic in Arizona, James DiGiovanna, tells us this week in Tucson Weekly:

The idiosyncratic weirdness of Troll 2 makes it watchable, but the exploration of the people behind that weirdness makes Best Worst Movie riveting. It says something important about art that small-town nobodies, deranged egoists and several people who would likely be labeled as mentally ill if they ever received medical attention could come together and make an intensely interesting, if in some ways incompetent, film like Troll 2, while in Hollywood, high-paid consultants and multi-million-dollar executives churn out flavorless crap that will be forgotten two weeks after the last misleading advertisement stops running.

You can watch Best Worst for sheer entertainment value, but it also excels as a quiet commentary on what it takes to make something rough and original in a copycat business run by smooth-edged clones.

Read the whole review here.

The Range made it over to the Loft last night for part one of The Other Network, which featured great TV pilots that didn't get the green light for network execs. Gotta say that Conan O'Brien's Lookwell was a work of genius. And Conan's story about how he and some Harvard buddies stole the Robin costume from Burt Ward was worth the price of admission alone.

Tonight, you'll have your chance to see Heatvision and Jack, which "stars Jack Black as a super-intelligent ex-astronaut, Owen Wilson as the voice of his talking motorcycle, and Ron Silver as himself, the villainous actor/NASA enforcer." That would have been appointment TV.

More details here.

Charlie Spillar, the sculptor who did yeoman's work in preserving the statues at Magic Carpet Golf, is now trying to save the big screens at the shuttered De Anza Drive-In in hopes of launching a new drive-in theater elsewhere in town. He tells us:

On Friday, June 18, a group of dedicated volunteers will be helping to remove major components of the giant screen from the closed and demolished De Anza Drive-In Theater on Alvernon near 22nd. The structures will be moved to a secure location for reassemble at a later date. Ever since the theaters closing, the public has been overwhelmingly supportive of a new drive-in project underway.

The efforts are lead by Charlie Spillar (savior of the Magic Carpet statues) and Demion Clinco, of the Tucson Historic Preservation Foundation. They have assembled an advisory team made up of several city government and business leaders. The group has plans for a community based new drive-in to be called the Cactus Drive-In. This was the actual name of the original drive-in at the Alvernon location started in 1951.

The volunteer organization now has a website in process to keep