EXCLUSIVE: Trailer for best animated film contender '$9.99'

Hollywood is not "supposed" to make movies with the word "Porno" in their titles, or recovering drug addicts as their superheroes, or gay activists as their subjects, but in 2008 all of the aforementioned rules, among others, were shown the door. If there was one rule that seemed sacred, it was that animated movies are made only for kids, not adults, but that, too, is now no longer the case.

The best may be yet to come. 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").

Rosenthal transplants the stories from Israel to an apartment building in Sydney, Australia, of all places (the film was co-financed by Israelis and Aussies), and employs the voices of several top Australian-born actors, including Oscar-winner Geoffrey Rush ("Shine") and Golden Globe winner Anthony LaPaglia ("Without a Trace"), to bring them to life.

Comments

[Ehud]

Saw the movie in Toronto, it rocks!
The most intelligent film I've seen in a long time.

[Keren Sagiv]

I saw it at the Toronto film festival,
there is no film like it: smart, moving, special. Touches your soul in a gentle and humorous way.
Don't miss it.