Weekend Movie Forecast: Donkey Punch or, um, Inkheart?

California Dreamin', the first and only feature directed by Cristian Nemescu, a filmmaker who died in a car accident shortly after completing it, concerns an American military intelligence officer who finds himself stuck in a Romanian backwater called Capalnita in 1999, ensnared in bureaucracy and corruption. The Times's A.O. Scott calls it "a rambunctious, closely observed comedy of cultural collision... It rambles a bit, but it always has something interesting to say. In particular, I think, to American audiences. Given everything that has happened since, the Kosovo intervention of 1999 may not seem like a terribly relevant or significant moment in history. But viewed through the lens of the Iraq war — which was surely on Mr. Nemescu’s mind in 2006 — this odd little Clinton-era anecdote takes on some unsettling resonances."