Never count out the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Film Festival: It's not over 'til it's over. Week two brings us several notable Minnesota-made features as well as four-star films from Italy, France and Manhattan. Friday Today's Special

★★★★

7 p.m. Fri. • 5 p.m. Sat. • U.S.

A madcap comedy set in New York City's Indian community. Pretentious Samir (Aasif Mandvi, "The Daily Show's" "senior foreign-looking correspondent") gets dumped as sous-chef at a snooty French restaurant because his cooking lacks passion. He finds himself running his family's tacky vindaloo palace in a panic: He's never stirred a curry. What's more, he's got to contend with his matchmaking mother (Madhur Jaffrey, one of the few award-winning actresses who is also a bestselling cookbook author). Enter zany cab driver Akbar (sublimely funny Naseeruddin Shah), who claims to have cooked for Indira Gandhi. The impish Akbar teaches uptight Samir to get loose, throw away his recipes, deal with his pestering parents and link up with a lady who appreciates him for what he is. The film is studded with a thousand points of local color, and the food is positively mouthwatering. Don't attend this screening on an empty stomach! (99 min.) COLIN COVERT

TIMER

★★★

7 p.m. Fri. • 9:30 p.m. Thu. • U.S.

Falling in love, and finding the one, is like watching "Lost." We think we want to know where everything is going, to know we haven't wasted our time. But isn't it the mystery that keeps us coming back? This refreshing spin on the romantic comedy, with a sci-fi premise, argues that concept. For a price, humans can stamp a timer on their wrists, counting down the days, years or even hours until they meet their true love. Writer-director Jac Schaeffer weighs the film down with perhaps one subplot too many, but for a reason: to explore the varied possibilities and moral dilemmas that could arise if this technology actually existed. "Timer" slowly won me over and eroded my cynicism, despite its Charlie Kaufman-knockoff high concept. (99 min.)ERIK McCLANAHAN

The Miscreants of Taliwood

★★★

9:30 p.m. Fri. • 7:15 p.m. Sun. • U.K./Pakistan

Director George Gittoes has made a typical modern-day documentary, the kind in which the filmmaker becomes a character in the story. If nothing else, the film will enlighten the audience on a film genre/industry most of us have never heard of: the Pashto movie. These ultra-low-budget Pakistani B movies, awash in little people, overacting, oddball song-and-dance numbers, and lots and lots of machine guns, are a big source of entertainment in that region. Gittoes, a charming and serious journalist, embeds himself in the country by starring in several Pashtos, elucidating Pakistani culture and the nature of its extremism. (93 min.)E.M.

The Sicilian Girl

★★ 1/2

9:45 p.m. Fri. • 9:30 p.m. Mon. • Italy

Based on a true story, it concerns Rita Atria, a young girl who witnessed the murder of her father, an Italian mafioso. When she discovers that her Uncle Salvo was behind the murder and, years later, her brother's murder too, she decides to testify against the uncle that she once loved. The film begins as a compelling first-hand account of the sacrifices made to seek justice for loved ones. The film showcases some beautiful Italian scenery, but eventually labors from a convoluted plot and wooden acting. (Subtitled. 100 min.)

JIM BRUNZELL III

Saturday I Am Love

★★★★

6:45 p.m. Sun. • 6:30 p.m. Thu. • Italy

Quite possibly the art film of the year, this exquisitely visualized, unabashedly operatic melodrama follows an upper-class Milanese family whose most passionate member, the Russian Emma (Tilda Swinton), falls in love with her son's friend, a yummy chef (Edoardo Gabbriellini). Meantime, Emma's daughter comes out of the closet, and there's a tragic accident, and ... Engrossing as the story is, co-writer/director Luca Guadagnino relegates it to grist for some of the most hauntingly poetic images to hit the screen in years. Cinephiles will recognize not only the influence of a half-dozen legendary directors (including Fellini), but that Guadagnino's dolce vita is all his own. A masterpiece. (Subtitled. 119 min.)ROB NELSON

NORTHLESS

★★★

7 p.m. Sat. • 9 p.m. Thu. • Mexico/Spain

The Mexican border-crossing film gets a few new twists in this understated, good-hearted dramedy. Andres (likable Harold Torres from "Rudo y Cursi") is intent on sneaking into the United States, though the Border Patrol is adept at catching him. While plotting his next attempt in Tijuana, he takes a job in a convenience store and befriends the women who run it (Alicia Laguna and Sonia Couoh). Each of them has a family life disrupted by emigration, and they forge a warm, temporary family unit of their own -- at least until Andres' next run at the border. (Subtitled. 93 min.)C.C.

BLUEBEARD

★★★★

5:15 p.m. Sat. • 4 p.m. Wed. • France

In the 17th-century fairy tale, the beauty Fatima may or may not be a suitable match for the beastly Bluebeard. But this movie represents a perfect marriage of material to auteur -- French feminist director Catherine Breillat's empowered deconstruction of the perennially disturbing source. Breillat ("Fat Girl," "Romance") brilliantly frames the story of a serial wife-killer (Dominique Thomas) and his latest pre-teen target (Lola Créton) with a parallel tale of young sisters getting a sneaky kick out of reading "Bluebeard" up in the attic. The irresistible temptation to taste what's bad or even evil permeates the film, which accordingly delivers countless moments of horrific beauty -- or beautiful horror, take your pick. (Subtitled. 78 min.)R.N.

THE REVENANT

★★ 1/2

11:15 p.m. Sat. • 9:45 p.m. Mon. • U.S.

Pitched as a zombie buddy comedy with political overtones, this is not exactly a zombie movie, nor does it say much politically. The problem here is genre mashing. Zombie movies typically require that we care for the characters, but since this is a buddy comedy, we're given two idiotic jerks who treat each other, and those they encounter, like dirt. With vigilante and war subplots thrown in too, it's overstuffed, but at times director Kerry Prior finds his footing and delivers some good, gory fun. The final shot, accompanied by Weezer's "Only in Dreams," is pretty damn cool. (110 min.)E.M.

Sunday Henri-Georges Clouzot's Inferno

★★★ 1/2

2:45 p.m. Sun. • 5:35 p.m. Tue.

In 1964, the great French director Clouzot set out to make what he hoped would be his masterpiece, "The Inferno." He had the full backing of Columbia Pictures, a star in Romy Schneider and a great script. But Clouzot was engulfed by megalomania, drove his cast and crew insane, and then suffered a heart attack, forcing the studio to pull the plug. Directors Serge Bromberg and Ruxandra Medrea unearth some eye-popping footage and have assembled a thrilling documentary. You will wonder if you're seeing what could have been one of the most innovative films of all time. Not to be missed. (Subtitled. 102 min.)PETER SCHILLING

THE UNRETURNED

★★★

3 p.m. Sun. • Minnesota-made

Nathan Fisher's documentary attempts to shed light on the 4.7 million Iraqis displaced by seven years of war with the United States. The film follows five middle-class Iraqis, detailing their struggles in relocating to Syria and Jordan, the bloated U.N. bureaucracy and the sorrows of relative homelessness. Fisher's scope doesn't venture far from the individuals he documents, but their dialogue pokes at a litany of larger issues, including the U.S. and Britain's reluctance to accept refugees and the serious threat of blowback, as even a little girl shouts "I hate Americans!" This is a cringingly massive bummer, but it's also -- as pointed out time and again by its subjects -- an important, largely untold story. (75 min.)JAY BOLLER

Monday Trampoline

★★★ 1/2

7 p.m. Mon. • Minnesota-made

Nearly 40 years after PBS burst into the Loud household, inaugurating reality TV with "An American Family," Twin Cities documentarian Mark Wojahn trains his camera on another compellingly eccentric clan. Acutely edited and at times almost shockingly intimate, "Trampoline" follows a year in the lives of a married Minneapolis couple and their four disturbingly unleashed teenagers. As the couple's bond begins to rupture, owing to some unknowable combination of mental illness and ordinary boredom (give or take the camera's presence), Wojahn doesn't disguise his friendly relationship to the people he's filming. In turn, the family members' gift to the audience is in laying themselves completely bare. Don't be surprised if some or all of them show up at the screening to take a bow. (99 min.)R.N.

Tuesday I Killed My Mother

★★★ 1/2

9:25 p.m. Tue. • 7:30 p.m. Thu. • Canada

"I don't think I was made to have a mother," admits Hubert, the young hero of this oddly poignant and often hilarious French-Canadian teen-angst comedy. As played by 20-year-old Xavier Dolan, the precocious talent who also wrote and directed the stylish film, 11th-grader Hubert is both extraordinarily snotty and your typical adolescent boy. He hates his mom (Anne Dorval) for legitimate reasons and petty ones, complaining that she leaves cream cheese on her mouth when she eats and applies makeup while driving, etc. Dolan uses the movie's title to taunt the audience, daring us to accept that the volatile kid might actually go all the way and commit matricide. Then, strangely, Hubert starts acting nice; then Mom finds out he's gay. Ooh la la! (In French, subtitled. 100 min.)R.N.

Thursday Scrap

★★★ 1/2

8:45 p.m. Thu. • Minnesota-made

This documentary by Paul von Stoetzel details two eccentric builders: Colorado backwoods castle architect Jim Bishop and Wisconsin junkyard-sculpture purveyor Tom Every. The film's technical elements aren't all there -- there are jump cuts galore and single shots linger forever. But it's all forgivable given the intrinsic intrigue of its subjects. Bishop's castle is an absolute marvel, one that he constructed with just his pickup, while Every's scrap-heap sculpture park -- dubbed the Forevertron -- is post-apocalyptically beautiful. But darker character traits emerge: namely the affable Bishop's anti-government, sometimes violent outbursts and Every's questionable sanity. Von Stoetzel's fingerprints aren't all bad (his soundtrack choice of Mike Gunther and His Restless Souls is spot-on), but this enjoyable doc hinges on the nuanced oddballs it studies. (101 min.)JAY BOLLER