$9.99

• Director: Tatia Rosenthal
• Writer: Etgar Keret, Tatia Rosenthal
• Cast: Geoffrey Rush, Anthony LaPaglia, Samuel Johnson, Claudia Karvan
• Theatrical Release Date: June 19, 2009
• Distributor: Regent Releasing
• On The Web Film WebsiteIMDB Entry

Synopsis: Based on the Short Stories of Etgar Keret, $9.99 is a stop motion animated feature which offers slightly less than $10 worth about the meaning of life. [Synopsis courtesy of Regent Releasing]

Round-up: The jury is out on whether or not Tatia Rosenthal's mutli-arc animated film packs the punch and delivers the message it's going for. Entertainment Weekly's Lisa Schwarzbaum thinks it does: "an artful film that ex... presses deep thoughts, lightly." "Even with a variety of arcs it still ends up feeling somewhat inert," counters indieWIRE's Jeff Reichert. Slant Magazine's Joseph Jon Lanthier considers the flaws and concludes, "Though uneven, as the ironic portrait of an intensely disillusioned stop-motion community the film singularly succeeds." In the LA Times, Sherri Linden may have found what caused the difference in opinions, "The connective tissue of its episodes and set pieces -- some of which pack a memorable punch -- is not a compelling story line but the painterly physicality of the movie's stop-motion animation."