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Reviews of what’s out now

New In Theaters

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Trolls

by George Wolf

So, there’s a reason for that gravity-defying shock of hair on the top of a troll’s head. It comes in mighty handy for camouflage, swinging from place to place, or even as a weapon against the attack of a hungry spider.

But these Dreamworks Trolls hate to resort to that last item. Fighting is unhappy business, and Trolls are the happiest creatures alive, filling their days with singing, dancing and hourly hug time.

Except for Branch.

Branch (Justin Timberlake, with a speaking voice that suddenly sounds more polished) lives in his doomsday bunker and warns Princess Poppy (the always likable Anna Kendrick) that loud frivolity will one day attract the attention of the dreaded Bergens, the giant miserable ogres that get their only happiness in life from…eating happy little Trolls.

Of course Branch is right, and when the evil Bergen Chef (Christine Baranski, hamming it up to fine effect) makes off with a fanny pack full of Trolls, Poppy must convince Branch to help her rescue their friends, teach the Bergens the meaning of true happiness, and get with the singing and hugging program already!

Crafted by a a team of co-directors and co-writers sporting multiple animation credits including the Shrek films, Trolls ends up feeling closer to a Smurfs episode after a big-budget 3D upgrade. It’s full of constant song snippets and color splashes, with a repetitive message of plucky positivity aimed squarely at the 8 and under crowd.

For the parents in tow, a few attempts at tongue-in-cheek humor do find their mark, like the friendly cloud who just wants a high five and the hippie-trippy rendition of “The Sounds of Silence.” Recognizable hits and familiar story lines keep coming, each reinforcing the vibe that Trolls is only interested in serving reheated leftovers.

There’s no crime is being a perfectly passable way to spend an afternoon with some young ones. Trolls certainly fits that bill, but its formulaic tale delivers little more.

Verdict-2-5-Stars

 

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xyjm5VQ11TQ;

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Shiver and Sing

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Gimme Danger

by Hope Madden

Quick, who said this: “I went to Detroit with a tab of mescaline and a shovel.”

Who but Iggy Pop?

Effortlessly odd and forever fascinating, Pop and his band, the seminal punks The Stooges, are the subject of Jim Jarmusch’s new documentary, Gimme Danger.

Rock docs forever champion their subjects, frequently making a case for someone’s misunderstood and underappreciated genius. The fact that this kind of treatment could possibly be needed for arguably the first ever punk band, a group who influenced The Ramones, The Sex Pistols, David Bowie and dozens of others – well, it’s just disheartening, isn’t it?

While the story – from Ann Arbor trailer park to punk stardom to Ann Arbor trailer park – fits with the traditional “Behind the Music” approach, it’s never wise to expect the expected with Jarmusch.

Sure, the filmmaker pieces together vintage Stooges performances with interviews, but Gimme Danger is awash in the kind of wry cinematic mastery that has become Jarmusch’s trademark. Interviews with Pop take place in his home, the singer sometimes perched on a golden throne bedecked by skulls, sometimes barefoot in the laundry room in front of a washer/dryer set.

Likewise, on-again, off-again Stooge guitarist James Williamson sits through his interviews, guitar in hand, in a public men’s room.

Why? Why not?

Jarmusch has always brought an unusual perspective to his films, and The Stooges are an unusual subject. The pairing works, and for all Jarmusch’s droll use of animation, Three Stooges bits and vintage advertising as backdrop to Stooge insanity, his own affection and respect for the band is always evident.

Indeed, very early in the film, he proclaims The Stooges, “The greatest rock and roll band of all time.”

Jim Jarmusch is a native Ohioan who loves The Stooges.

Oh my God – we have so much in common!

His relationship with Pop goes back decades, since the singer co-starred in Jarmusch’s Dead Man and an early Coffee and Cigarettes short. In both, Pop (billed here as Jim Osterberg as Iggy Pop) haunts and bewilders with his sinewy frame and enormous eyes.

Oddly enough, Gimme Danger neglects some of the more jarring and lurid details of the Pop life. Jarmusch remains reverent throughout the film, focusing exclusively on The Stooges’ musical history. Almost quizzically missing is detail of Pop and crew’s self-destructive behavior, Pop’s infamous stage antics, or any mention of his solo musical or dramatic career.

Nope, Jarmusch wants you to realize that the world’s first punk band – as infamous record scout Danny Fields notes – reinvented music as we know it.

Truth.

Verdict-4-0-Stars

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WJhABiPQ4AU

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Abandon All Hope

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Inferno

by Matt Weiner

Good versus evil. Heaven versus hell. The first 15 minutes of Inferno versus the last 105 minutes…

Director Ron Howard’s latest Dan Brown adaptation reprises Tom Hanks as the clearly tenured Professor Robert Langdon, once again caught up in a global conspiracy that will require his knowledge of symbols, art and religious icons to solve a series of puzzles.

And this time, it’s not just Catholicism that hangs in the balance—Langdon soon learns he’s tracking a deadly virus that, if released, would wipe out much of the world’s population.

Langdon spends the first 15 minutes of the film recovering from a bullet wound and massive head trauma, with no memory of the last few days. He hears voices and suffers violent hallucinations plagued with visions of medieval horror. The quick cuts are unsettling, as if Jason Bourne dropped acid while watching The Omen.

The Dantean grotesques invading Langdon’s head and complete lack of plot coherence also hinted at the chance that maybe, just maybe, Howard would pull off the greatest conspiracy of all and turn a lavish studio tentpole into an unhinged Italian horror send-up.

And then Langdon’s memory starts to come back. That’s when the rest of the film segues from Dario Argento to standard thriller. (You can reliably track the dullness of the movie with the sharpness of Langdon’s puzzle skills.)

It’s not that the thriller portion of Inferno is bad, although it is equal parts frenetic and nonsensical. Based on the source material, though, the relentless pacing is probably for the best, or else you’ll start to wonder when the World Health Organization started building up lethal military commandos without the United Nations getting concerned. Or why nobody is too bothered by the existence of a secret multinational security company that almost destroyed the world. (Or why the movie wastes the electric Irrfan Khan as the group’s leader.) Go in with the right expectations, though, and Inferno won’t disappoint.

Where Inferno really misses the mark isn’t so much its tiredness as a thriller but its complete lack of relevance. Paranoid classics like Three Days of the Condor and All the President’s Men oozed 1970s zeitgeist like blood on bitumen.

But in 2016, at the climax of the United States election—of this election, in these times—Inferno opts to menace us with an asocial Silicon Valley businessman (played by Ben Foster) whose views on humans are just a hair to the right of some actual Silicon Valley CEOs and venture capitalists.

Forgive the plot. Forgive Robert Langdon’s haircuts. Forgive Foster, whose face earns infinite goodwill by reminding you that he also spent 2016 onscreen in Hell or High Water.

But in a movie that, including the end credits, makes rational sense for maybe 20 minutes, the biggest unsolved mystery is how little feels at stake—and how unimaginative the film thinks about what the end of the world as we know it might look like.

Verdict-2-0-Stars

 

 

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Portraits and Landscapes

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Certain Women

by Hope Madden

Writer/director Kelly Reichardt sees something extraordinary in the simple daily struggle of ordinary people. Her latest film, Certain Women, again observes with genuine interest the (mostly) routine choices and sacrifices that quietly shape lives.

Weaving together three separate tales, each with just a whisper of a connection to the next, she tells of the isolation and disappointments coloring the lives of certain small town women.

Laura Dern stands out, exasperated but compassionate, as a rural Montana lawyer contending with a confused and obstinate client (Jared Harris, wonderful). Their story crescendos with uncharacteristic (for Reichardt) drama, but even here, the intimacy and understatement highlight something far more human than the tale itself predicts.

Reichardt regular Michelle Williams leads the second story, one full of understated moments echoing with regret and longing. The third, starring Kristen Stewart as a new lawyer teaching a class and Lily Gladstone as the desperately lonely ranch hand she befriends, is the most hushed and heartbreaking.

Stewart, who’s been so strong in recent roles (Clouds of Sils Maria, Still Alice, Equals), falls back a bit on her trademark angst, but Gladstone’s aching loneliness balances it out.

It isn’t simply the characters, beautifully wrought as they are, that carry these loosely braided tales. Reichardt’s eloquently captured Montana landscape, lovely but hard, both informs and reflects each of the leads.

She’s working again with regular collaborator, cinematographer Christopher Blauvelt, and together they let the rugged landscape speak as loudly, or as quietly, as the cast.

Few filmmakers – if any – can create such texture in a film. Reichardt rushes nothing, letting every scene breathe, every performance matter. There’s no shorthand here, and viewers thirsting for clear-cut drama and momentum may be uncomfortable with her choices. But those familiar with her work – Meek’s Cutoff (2010) and Wendy and Lucy (2008), in particular – will embrace the quiet intimacy of the portraits.

Verdict-4-0-Stars

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(Here’s the Story) Morning Glory

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Oasis: Supersonic

by George Wolf

For any aspiring musician, it all starts with a dream.

“I want the severed head of Phil Collins in my ‘fridge by the end of the decade, or it will all be a failure.”

Liam Gallagher may have swung and missed on that declaration (Phil’s okay, right?), but merely two and a half years after forming Oasis in the early 1990s, Liam and his older brother Noel led one of the most popular bands on the planet.

How’d that happen?

The Gallaghers admit that’s “a big question that deserves a big answer,” and director Mat Whitecross provides it with the wildly entertaining Oasis: Supersonic.

Whitecross, along with the producers behind the academy award-winning doc Amy, is blessed with an illuminating stash of archival footage that stretches back before the band’s first official gig at King Tut’s Wha Wha Hut in Glasgow (try the Haggis!). Whitecross often combines that footage with graphics and animation to keep the pace lively and somewhat on par with the Gallagher boys’ spontaneous outbursts of attitude.

Both Liam and Noel earn a producing credit on the film, but you never get the feeling they’re trying to craft perceptions or avoid messy details. In fact some moments, such as the playback of a phone call where they physically threaten their estranged father, can get awkwardly intimate.

And mom Peggie is a hoot.

While the film admits that “Noel has a lot of buttons, and Liam has a lot of fingers,” the brothers’ contentious relationship seems less of a stumbling block to the band’s existence than the stifling effects of surprisingly massive success.

Whitecross avoids any Behind the Music-style ruminations on the fall from grace, and his film is better for it.  Music fan or not, Oasis: Supersonic stands as a fascinating and satisfying journey.

Verdict-4-0-Stars

 

 

New In Theaters

Bringing Your Work Home

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Ouija: Origin of Evil

by Hope Madden

It’s a rare thing for a sequel to better its predecessor. It helps when the bar is not particularly high in the first place.

Such is the case for Ouija: Origin of Evil. A prequel to the 2014 by-the-numbers spook flick Ouija, the new iteration takes us back to a stylish 1965 where a struggling widow (Elizabeth Reaser) tries to eek out a living as a fortune teller.

Though her goal is noble – she just wants to bring peace to the grieving – her gig is a scam. Worse still, she enlists the help of her 9 and 16-year-old daughters. But when she brings a Ouija board home to liven up the act, her youngest turns out to be the real medium.

This is not a great film. It is, however, not half bad.

Director Mike Flanagan (Absentia, Hush), who co-wrote with Jeff Howard, has proven that he can mine even familiar territory for chills. His casting certainly doesn’t hurt.

Rather than relying on fresh faced teens to carry a supernatural slasher, he turns to seasoned actors – Reaser and Henry Thomas (that’s right – Elliot!) – to ground the fantastical elements with understated but believable performances.

The important roles, though, are the kids. Annalise Basso – so strong in Flanagan’s middling Oculus – again nails a performance as a normal kid living through extraordinary circumstances.

Lulu Wilson plays the wee spiritualist Doris, and though she occasionally slips into something too cloying, for the most part she handles her part with a nice balance of innocence and eeriness.

Flanagan wisely picks up enough from the previous film for this origins story to make it a proper standalone effort. He does get a bit heavy handed with the tiresome FX (is anyone still undone by a crab walking pre-adolescent at this point?), but for 2/3 of the film his approach is more measured. He lets the appealing performances and family dynamic do most of the heavy lifting.

Elements that weaker filmmakers would have hit hard Flanagan allows to linger, to become intriguing rather than damning.

As has been the case throughout his career, he can’t quite close the deal. Though never terrifying and rarely fresh, Origin of Evil still brings enough era-specific nods and spook house moments to be a fun seasonal escape – but never more than that.

Verdict-2-5-Stars

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Valley Dogs

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In A Valley of Violence

by Cat McAlpine

Paul (Ethan Hawke) just wants to make it to Mexico, and freedom. Unfortunately, a random and heart-wrenching act of violence detours him down a bloody path to revenge. Writer/director Ti West brings his experience in the horror genre to the Wild West, with surprising but refreshing reserve.

In a Valley of Violence benefits from West’s time in horror. The build is steady and slow. Paul transforms from quiet stranger to calculating killer, but all the blood is earned. The shootouts aren’t elaborate but they are grisly and realistic.

The first note I wrote down was “color”. (The second note I wrote down was “His dog wears a bandana.”) West has colorized an homage to old westerns, bright and yellow. At the turning point, though, his roots show.

The camera work changes with Paul. A flashback is handled with a shaky cam and a flashlight. It feels like found footage, and though it’s a jarring stylistic change, it’s not unwelcome.

Another scene is shot from a single vantage point that makes the view feel like a security camera. The small room almost gets that fisheye quality, as Paul sneaks up behind an unsuspecting bather. These touches gently meld the horror and western genres, using cues from both to shape the viewers’ journey.

The performances are as realistic as West’s measured use of bullets and blood. Hawke is brooding and dangerous, but soft, too. His dog is an excellent device to extrapolate the way PTSD can function. Paul confidently banters with his dog, makes her promises, plots with her… but when he’s faced with people he keeps his mouth shut and his eyes low.

As the sheriff, John Travolta plays with equal restraint and mastery. He’s quiet but commanding, a good match to Hawke. As he devolves into panic, Travolta becomes funnier and more terrifying.

These performances from the two veterans balance out a younger cast of characters who are spoiling for adventure.

Karen Gillan shines with absurdity and humor, and she’s hard not to watch, even sprinting across the back of a shot. Taissa Farmiga is all wide-eyed wonder, but carries enough grit to make her character arc as compelling as Paul’s.

Most of the absurdity comes from a truly excellent Burn Gorman, as the priest. His drunken ramblings about sinners are bizarre, and showcase some of the best writing in the film. The priest’s appearances divide the film into three distinct parts, highlighted by Paul’s changing interaction with him each time. He serves as a beautiful device and a welcome, though momentary, release of pressure.

In a Valley of Violence is an homage to the traditional western with updates from the horror genre, not with blood, but with tension. Paired with a fantastic score from Jeff Grace and a cast that delivers, West has avoided the trappings of the modern shoot-em-ups and rejoined the classics with some fresh perspective.

Verdict-4-0-Stars

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ek8cjysuvJ4

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Time to Stop Reaching

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Jack Reacher: Never Go Back

by Hope Madden

Who is Jack Reacher?

“The guy you didn’t count on.”

Or, the guy spewing some tired, tired lines.

Four years ago Tom Cruise pissed off Lee Child fans when he put on the rumpled jeans and tee of the 6’5” drifter with mad military skills. In the serviceable thriller Jack Reacher, Cruise’s character puzzled through a homicide set up with the help of an inappropriately dressed defense lawyer.

Nowadays, though, maybe Jack is subconsciously looking to settle down. He meanders back to DC to talk with the Major who is now in command of his old post – the overtly fierce Samantha Turner (Cobie Smulders). Sparks?

Well, there might have been except Major Turner’s been incarcerated, there’s a highly trained sociopath with an alpha complex and a fancy pair of leather gloves, and an at-risk teen is in need of guidance.

The action’s far less interestingly choreographed, the humor is nonexistent, the villain is far blander (it was Werner Herzog last go-round, for lord’s sake!).

With the right combination of vulnerability, brattiness and savvy, Danika Yarosh provides the rare bright spot as the wayward teen. Smulder’s indignant badass is all but intolerable. Meanwhile, Cruise seems paralyzed as he tries to relay confused and conflicted paternal tendencies.

Edward Zwick’s stale direction isn’t helping. The closest thing to panache comes by way of the now de rigueur chase across urban rooftops. Yawn.

Still, Zwick’s greater crime may be the screenplay he co-wrote with Richard Wenk and Marshall Herskovitz, adapted from the Child novel. There is a difference between streamlining text and discarding character development, plot movement and sense. You spend 30% of the film thinking, “Well, that was certainly convenient.”

Incompetent plotting, weak catch phrases and a shocking lack of chemistry among any and all actors will keep a project from succeeding. Hopefully everyone involved – including the audience – can leave the film and never go back.

Verdict-2-0-Stars

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They Got a Thing Going On

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Keeping Up With the Joneses

by George Wolf

Jon Hamm and Gal Gadot as smooth and glamorous undercover spies? I’ll buy that. How ’bout Zach Galifianakis as a sensitive nerd and Isla Fisher as the wife just one makeover from bringing sexy back? Not a stretch.

Finding any good reason for Keeping Up with the Joneses, though, certainly is.

Jeff and Karen Gaffney (Zach and Isla) have just sent their two boys off the summer camp and finally have the house the themselves, so you know they first thing they do when they’re alone? Eat popcorn and watch The Good Wife on DVR!  That’s just the first of many obvious punchlines in search of a laughtrack.

See, the thrill is gone and the Gaffneys need that spice back! New neighbors Tim and Natalie Jones (Jon and Gal) bring it. They’re too perfect, and Karen just knows they’re up to no good, so she puts on a funny hat to follow Natalie, and they end up trying on lingerie together! Isn’t that zany and scandalous for these suburban wives?

This whole thing is just a waste of everyone’s time. The cast is talented, and director Greg Mottola has a fine resume (Superbad, The Newsroom) so shade might be thrown in the general director of Michael LeSieur and his inane script.

There’s nothing new here, nothing really creative (well, okay, the end credit graphics have a fine style) and very, very little that’s worth even a chuckle. Will the squares in white suburbia teach the superspies about feelings? Will the spies show the bored couple how to put sex and excitement back in their marriage?

Wait, wasn’t I in a movie like this, but better?

Yes, Gal Gagot, you were. It was Date Night, and it was funny.

This is not.Verdict-1-5-Stars

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A Movie that Gives Your Heart a Hug

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A Man Called Ove

by Christie Robb

There’s a concept in the northern countries of Europe that helps the people there combat the rigors of the long, frigid, winter nights. It’s called gemütlichkeit in German, hygee in Danish, and mysig in Swedish and loosely translates as “cozy.” But it’s not just a sitting in front of a crackling fire, blanket on lap, warm drink in hand kind of physical cozy. The concept encompasses emotional coziness—friendliness, peace of mind, social acceptance. The Swedish film A Man Called Ove, exudes mysig.

It’s the story of a cantankerous old widower who has recently been counseled out of his 40+ year job. His life has shrunk to the point where his days are spent patrolling his neighborhood enforcing homeowners’ association rules, yelling about where dogs can answer the call of nature, and tossing junk at stray cats. His plan is to wrap up the loose ends of his existence, and then join his wife by taking his own life. But the plan is delayed by the young family that moves into the house across the street, running into his mailbox in the process.

And you probably know where the movie is going to go from there. You’ve seen versions of this story before: Dr. Seuss’ How the Grinch Stole Christmas!, Up, St. Vincent, etc. Crabby old guy softened by the connections made with a youngster. But that doesn’t make Ove any less charming.

In Hannes Holm’s adaptation of Fredrik Backman’s bestselling novel, Rolf Lassgård manages to make even the angriest, most nihilistic version of Ove seen in the first portion of the film somehow likable despite his rudeness. And, in flashback sequences that occur each time Ove attempts suicide, his life story is fleshed out, revealing past events that have contributed to his current demeanor. This makes his subsequent, often bumbling, attempts at increased connection more poignant. And the family that provides a catalyst for his change is helmed by the fantastic Parvaneh (Bahar Pars)—friendly, decent, very pregnant, and taker of absolutely zero-shit from anyone.

It’s the kind of movie that makes you appreciate the beauty in the small details in life, the mysig: a well-cared-for green plant perched in front of a frosty window, a child’s drawing, neighbors that know your name and wave to you from across the street, a car ride with your dad. It’s the kind of movie that you’ll appreciate as the temperature dips, the dark comes creeping ever earlier, and the sky takes on the appearance of soiled sidewalk. It’s the kind of movie that might be best enjoyed with a small group of good friends and a warm beverage.

Verdict-4-5-Stars