Art-house films to see this weekend

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On "The Takeaway," Rafer Guzman, film critic for "Newsday," and Karina Longworth, editor of "Spout" gave their picks for the art-house films to see this weekend:

"Blind Date" stars Stanley Tucci and Patricia Clarkson, and was produced under Tucci's direction. The story is about a couple that try to reconnect and reinvigorate their marriage after the death of their young child by going on a series of blind dates with each other.

"As a solution, they essentially start going on a series of blind dates," explained Guzman. "One will place an ad in the newspaper, the other will answer. They'll show up, they'll start to get to know each other again, they'll talk about themselves in character. They keep their names, Don and Jana, but they pretend to be different types of people each time. It is a way for them to get to know each other, and little by little, you come to understand what exactly it is that went wrong in the marriage."

"Disgrace" is the screen adaptation of the novel by J.M. Coetzee, starring John Malkovich. The plot, on the surface, appears to be extremely complicated.  

Guzman: "It begins with Malkovich, who is a university professor in Capetown, South Africa. He is an inveterate womanizer. He goes to bed with one of his mixed-race students, sort of a semi-consensual affair, and he gets fired, which would be enough for one movie. Then he winds up going to live with his daughter, who is a lesbian; they live on a farm. They are promptly attacked by three very young black boys, and she is raped. Basically, the rest of the movie is Malkovich trying to come to terms with that and what has happened to his daughter."

Longworth's pick is a Coco Chanel biopic, "I really like 'Coco Before Chanel,' which is a biopic of the early life of the fashion designer. It stars Audrey Tautou, from 'Amelie.'  I like to think of it as a guilty pleasure for smart people — it is kind of 'Sex and the City' for people who are appalled by 'Sex and the City.'

"It's got the fashion, romance from both the romantic and unsentimental point-of-view, and it is a really interesting portrait of a complicated woman."

Here's the trailer for "Coco Before Chanel"