A few of our picks for the upcoming Wisconsin Film Fest, if you’re interested:

Wednesday, March 30th

13 Assassins: “Takashi Miike’s rousing spectacle is a remake of a little-known 1963 film by the same title, but is clearly the heir to the ultimate posse-gatherer, Akira Kurosawa’s Seven Samurai. As his crimes against humanity are detailed in traumatic flashbacks, Naritsugu becomes one of the all-time most hissable screen villains, and it is tremendously gratifying to watch the heroic band assemble against him. It builds to a mammoth showdown, a 45-minute showstopper erupting with sword fighting, arrow attacks, explosions, and flaming wild boar stampede.&#148 A flaming wild boar stampede! Count me in!

Pink Saris: “Sampat Pal Devi doesn’t take any guff. A short, powerful woman in a hot pink sari, she fearlessly challenges and intimidates men twice her size in a community where she is considered a second-class citizen at best.” Stop. You had me at “hot pink sari.”

Thursday, March 31st

Beneath Hill 60: “In 1916, a secret army company of Australian mining engineers was sent to France to work on the Western Front. More accurately, to work under the Western Front, as their mission was to tunnel under German lines and trigger dynamite under key enemy posts — the largest amount of explosives ever collected in one place!” Nuff said.

Project Nim: “Noam Chomsky has theorized that language is uniquely human. But humans and chimpanzees share the great majority of the same genetic material — could they share language as well?” A talking monkey movie. Yes. I’m in.

Marwencol: “At 1/6-scale size and outfitted with enough plastic artillery to take down the Cobra Commander, Marwencol is the fascinating creation of outsider artist Mark Hogancamp. Suffering from permanent brain damage after being beaten outside a bar in upstate New York, he constructed a miniature town in his backyard as a kind of self-imposed therapy, furnishing toy soldiers with elaborate backstories that echoed his own trials.” I can identify with anybody doing something this quirky with his spare time.