Actor Matt Malloy reads "Shoes" by Etgar Keret, about a boy who betrays his people with a pair of shoes on the radio show "This American Life".

... On Dec. 12, "$9.99," a beautiful stop-motion animated film by Israeli filmmaker Tatia Rosenthal, will be released in American theaters, having already played to great acclaim at the Toronto and Rome film festivals. As you can get a sense from the trailer for "$9.99," which is debuting exclusively on this blog, the film is a bit of an existentialist, surrealist story - an animated "Synecdoche, New York," if you will - that was weaved together from several short stories by revered Israeli writer Etgar Keret (who himself co-won Cannes' Camera d'Or last year for the Israeli film "Meduzot") ...

$9.99, a stop motion toon for grown-ups, based on the very short stories of Israeli writer Etgar Keret (some of them no longer than a sneeze, but evocative enough to set your imagination running). That might seem like a shortage of material on which to base a feature, but consider that (a) most blockbusters can be reduced to 25 words or less and (b) director Tatia Rosenthal has gathered up a handful of Keret's ideas and packed them into a single film (by making his characters neighbors in a disaster-prone Australian apartment building), and you've got more than enough story to deal with.

November 1 - Palo Alto
November 2 - San Francisco
November 3 - UC Berkeley

The best films in the first part of the festival were small films that more than delivered because they never pretend to be anything there are not. ... Equally enchanting is the Israeli-Australian animated film "$9.99" from director Tatia Rosenthal. The film uses stop-motion animation to tell the stories of a very heterogeneous group of people who all live in the same apartment building in Sydney. The screenplay by Etgar Keret and the director strikes just the right balance between quirk and simple observation, making the animated characters all lovable but flawed human beings. Geoffrey Rush's contribution as the voice of a character who might be an angel is especially noteworthy.

Thursday, October 23, 2008 at 7:30PM
Central Library, 1901 Vine Street, 19103.
No tickets required. For Info: 215-567-4341.

"[Jellyfish] provides a diverting portrait of modern-day Israel, as the filmmakers eschew history, politics and religion to focus instead on more intimate and universal issues of fate, loss and the longing to connect."

Confident enough to simply suggest the fantastical and never nail it down, and nervy enough to quote Jean Vigo's "L'Atalante" in the end, "Jellyfish" is rich with motifs and mysteries, and displays a sweet, patient personality.

October 30, 2008, Time: 7:00 PM - 9:00 PM
Central Library : Mark Taper Auditorium
630 W. Fifth Street , Los Angeles , 90071
Phone: (213) 228-7025
Admission: Free
Accessibility: Wheel Chair Access, Hearing Devices Available,
Website: www.aloudla.org
Description: Two fiction writers, Etgar Keret and Ben Ehrenreich, discuss what's real, what's not, and whether or not it really matters.
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Reservations recommended. Go to the website or call (213) 228-7025.

Visually stunning, the film's animation is rich in detail which can be seen in the characters' eyes and in the sweat of lovers' bodies. ... One can only hope for an early release date for this movie and for more offerings from both Rosenthal and Keret in the future.
$9.99 is a truly magical cinematic experience.

$9.99 The title also happens to be the price of a book that promises to reveal the meaning of life, an answer of interest to a mild-mannered twentysomething guy who lives at home with his blustery father. Both of whom are stop-motion animated creations, part of a vivid universe of characters in search of contentment. Using the droll, wise stories of Etgar Keret as her guide, inventive Israeli filmmaker Tatia Rosenthal concocts an artiful film that%u2019s enchanted, enchanting, and meaningful, too