Category Archives: New In Theaters

Reviews of what’s out now

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A Life Extraordinary

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He Named Me Malala

by Christie Robb

Malala Yousafzai was a remarkable person years before becoming the youngest Nobel Peace Prize recipient at the age of 17. What is impressive about her is not her having survived a head shot by a Taliban gunman in 2012; it’s her courage and strength in speaking out in nonviolent protest. It is her continuing support of children’s right to an education despite the threats to her life and the lives of her family members.

Oscar-winning director Davis Guggenheim (An Inconvenient Truth) presents Malala’s story in his new documentary, He Named Me Malala.

As you might guess, the central relationship explored in the film is between Malala and the man who named her, her father Ziauddin. He named his baby girl after Malalai—a female folk hero that roused dispirited Afghani fighters to war against the British and was shot and killed in the attempt—quite something to live up to.

Ziauddin himself seems something to live up to. A rebel schoolteacher who refused to be silent under increasing Taliban restrictions, he fostered a love of learning in Malala and taught her to raise her own voice against oppression when the voices of so many women and girls were strangled.

The tension of Guggenheim’s film builds slowly throughout, even as the storyline bounces around from stories of the Yousafzai family, to the Taliban’s rise to power in the Swat valley, to Malala becoming an anonymous schoolgirl blogger for the BBC at age 11, to her present day activism, to Malala’s decision to break her anonymity and appear on camera in Pakistan speaking in support of girls’ education. Finally, the tension peaks with footage of the bus on which Malala and two of her friends were shot, not by a gunman, as her father says, but by an “ideology.”

However, the movie is not simply an encomium to an internationally famous humanitarian. Guggenheim shows Malala not just as the extraordinary public figure that she has become, but also as a teenage girl who tussles with her younger brothers, stresses about grades, and crushes on sports figures. Guggenheim also makes some effort to show the mixed response Malala gets in Pakistan, where some people think she’s just a mouthpiece for her father or an agent of Western Imperialism.

And he explores the question of whether Ziauddin, this man who slapped this famous name on Malala, really forced her into this public life without her buy-in. Twice Guggenheim includes Ziauddin’s worry that, upon waking from her coma, Malala would accuse him, “I was a child, you should have stopped me.” And Malala raises her voice to say that she’s made her own choices. That she, “…chose this life and now… must continue it.”

It’s an amazing life and one worth watching.

Verdict-4-0-Stars

New In Theaters

Frankenfilm

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The Inhabitants

by Christie Robb

The Inhabitants is a hodgepodge of horror elements cut and sewn awkwardly together to create a film that isn’t particularly scary and lacks thematic consistency.

But what a good location! The movie was filmed inside the Noyes-Parris House, formerly owned by the father of one of the girls who kicked off the Salem Witchcraft Trials. As such, you come in expecting a certain degree of paranoid atmosphere and the use of witchy tropes.

The story follows a young couple that decides to buy and renovate an old bed and breakfast. The screenwriters make no real attempt to explain how the couple can possibly afford the place or what exactly their goals for it are, but it’s hard to quibble with that issue when the acting quality and opening credit sequence has you squinching up in your seat—not from fear or anticipation, but from a justified suspicion that you’ve accidentally stumbled into a horror movie porn parody, given the minutes of static-y black and white footage featuring folks disrobing, bathing, and humping.

But, the movie then switches tone.

We are introduced to the main leads, who do somewhat exude the sense of ennui of two porn stars well into a long day of shooting, but after the odd soft-core porn sequence, the film covers up the skin and lurches along for another 80 minutes that drag like an ill-sewn leg on a reanimated cadaver.

The wife, Jessica, finds out that the original owner of the house was a midwife, tried and executed for witchcraft. Set in a historical location with ties to the famous trials, midwife/witch in the mix, even with the acting…I’m on board.

But, instead of focusing on this theme, the film tries to incite scares by randomly throwing elements at you that just don’t work or really seem to belong in the same movie, like the bank of AV equipment that allows the husband to spy on Jessica’s increasingly weird antics (but that undermines the likability of the husband), or the smokers in the woods that are intended to seem menacing (but just seem like furtive high school kids with a mild addiction to nicotine), or the dog that appears abruptly and seems attuned to the possible presences in the house (but then disappears unceremoniously), or the ghost Jessica sees…in the washing machine (washing machines aren’t scary).

Despite having access to the famous house, the setting and history of Salem is rather absent save for a brief trip to the Ye Olde Witch Museum. This trip, however, is nicely balanced by the couple’s trip into town…to grocery shop at Whole Foods.

This broke the sense of isolation and vulnerability that the directors were trying to achieve. My suspension of disbelief was shattered as soon as I saw the logo on that paper bag. Do not send your characters to Whole Foods unless you want us to be biting our fingernails worrying about their food budget.

Not bad enough to drunk-watch with friends, I suggest passing on this one. It’s not worth gathering the pitchforks and torches.

Verdict-1-5-Stars

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ULDfLrnhjw

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Mars Needs Disco

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The Martian

by George Wolf

The Martian is about brains over brawn, about thoughtful solutions trumping impulse. It’s a veritable mash note to science, it looks great and it has a veteran cast that’s actually too star- studded.

It has all the earmarks of a blockbuster, but still can’t shake the feeling of missed opportunity.

Matt Damon stars as astronaut Mark Watney, part of a NASA research team stationed at an outpost on Mars. In a quick setup very reminiscent of Gravity, he is struck by debris during a nasty storm and is lost in the darkness. The team believes Watney to surely be dead, and leaves for home without him.

Once Watney comes to and tends to his injuries, he’s got some issues to ponder, such as how to grow food on a desolate planet, let NASA know he’s alive, and learn to love all the 70s disco playlists that his mission commander (Jessica Chastain) left behind. “Don’t Leave Me This Way” followed by “I Will Survive”? Got it.

Legendary director Ridley Scott and writer Drew Goddard (The Cabin in the Woods, World War Z) make an impressive duo on paper, but have trouble finding a consistent tone that fits.

Watney starts a video blog, a convenient device for detailed explanations on how he’s going to “science the shit” out of his predicament, with plenty of time for upbeat witticisms and disco talk. “Science the shit” is a nice line, but the script also has plenty of forced moments such as “that could work….as long as nothing goes wrong.”

Cut to something going wrong.

Damon is endlessly charming, and the single biggest element keeping the entire film from spiraling out of control. Chastain seems both distracted and a distraction, as you realize this isn’t the first time she’s left Damon stranded on a distant planet (Interstellar).

Jeff Daniels sleep walks through his scenes as the NASA chief, Chiwetel Ejiofor’s presence is wasted and Kristin Wiig shows up in a role that is basically needless.

With a running time pushing two and a half hours, there’s ample chance to cut deeper than the superficial nature the film embraces. By the time Bowie’s “Starman” starts cranking, you get the feeling it wants to tap into that Guardians of the Galaxy soundtrack vibe on the way to making some statement on humanity.

Though The Martian is certainly capable filmmaking, it whiffs on both counts.

Verdict-2-5-Stars

 

 

 

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This I Could Not Do

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Partisan

by Hope Madden

Ariel Kleiman casts a spell with his feature film debut Partisan, an enigmatic effort concerning a tribe of juvenile assassins and their surrogate – and sometimes biological – father, Gregori.

A captivating Vincent Cassel stars as the mentor, guru, and unyielding leader of the group. The film opens on Cassel, ragged and alone, building from hand and refuse what will become a sprawling, hidden fortress. Here he will house and educate a dozen or more children and their world-wearied mothers.

This is a cult, of sorts, and Gregori’s methods are deceptively paternal, but as his eldest and first protégé approaches adolescence, the limits of Gregori’s control begin to appear.

Kleiman’s measured storytelling offers as many questions as answers, enthralling with this alien yet believable scenario. He creates an atmosphere of near-wholesomeness and dubious nurturing that chills you.

Cassel’s performance is both restrained and bursting. Though the French actor has portrayed scads of villains in his impressive career, none are as thoughtfully drawn as Gregori. Cassel plumbs the character for self-delusion, tenacity, faux tenderness, and icy psychosis all at once. Gregori is exactly the charismatic figure who could command from nothing just such a bizarre family.

His chemistry with the young cast is both frightening and lovely – particularly his fragile onscreen bond with Jeremy Chabriel as prepubescent killer Alexander. Chabriel shoulders much of the film’s emotional heft, and he’s able to communicate the especially complicated coming of age facing this character with the skill of an actor twice his age.

Chabriel’s scenes with his mother and baby brother are layered, as the boy grapples with his own youthful – though not exactly innocent – view of the world, family, patriarchy, and devotion.

The unanswered questions, though often provocative, sometimes make the film feel unfinished. Still, Kleiman is a confident storyteller, and even with some missing pieces, he’s composed a taut, chilling, and unique vision of a particularly fraught journey toward adulthood.

Verdict-4-0-Stars

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Not the Same Old Grind

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Mississippi Grind

by George Wolf

Two gamblers – one a smooth talking charmer and the other a desperate loser – team up for a high stakes road trip to New Orleans, taking all the action they can along the way.

It may sound like a cliche waiting to happen, but if you think you know where Mississippi Grind is heading, think again. Filmmakers Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck (Half Nelson, Sugar) don’t do same old same old. The writing/directing team is more interested in slowly immersing you in a new environment, letting simple truths drip from the intimate details of their characters.

Gerry (Ben Mendelsohn) has a growing list of gambling debts and a daughter he never sees, but things might be looking up. The high-rolling, confident Curtis (Ryan Reynolds) sits down at Gerry’s card game, buys him a drink (“not the cheap stuff, either”) and suddenly Gerry thinks he’s found a lucky charm.

Curtis agrees to Gerry’s idea for the road trip, but questions linger. Sure, Curtis can work a room with the best of them, but is it all just to find his next hapless mark? The film wouldn’t work without two sublime performances to drive it, and there’s no question it works.

Reynolds has never been better, keeping just enough of his usual smirking smart ass persona to give Curtis an extra layer that makes him hard to pin down. Mendelsohn is less of a surprise, as he might be the most consistently great actor that nobody knows. He keeps Gerry a constantly evolving work, equal parts thieving liar and gold-hearted schlub who just needs a break.

Sienna Miller and Analeigh Tipton both make effective use of their limited screen time as working girls who get a visit from the southbound duo. They not only give us added glimpses into the souls of Gerry and Curtis, but they’re also real characters unto themselves.

Boden and Fleck introduce each new locale with postcard perfect shots free of almost all life, another reminder our interest is Gerry and Curtis and where they are going, both literally and figuratively.

With enthralling characters, mesmerizing performances and filmmakers confident enough to stay their own course, it’s a hugely satisfying trip.

Verdict-4-0-Stars

 

 

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Effective Blunt Instrument

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Sicario

by Hope Madden

How versatile is Emily Blunt?

Who’d have thought, back when she caught our attention in Devil Wears Prada or The Young Victoria that she’d step so easily into the role of badass? But between her shotgun-wielding protector in Looper and her Sigourney Weaver-esque role in Edge of Tomorrow, she’s proven as compelling a figure in action as she is in comedy and drama. She proves her mettle again in Denis Villeneuve’s take on the drug war, Sicario.

Blunt plays Kate Macer, a determined cop working hostage crises who’s promoted to a vaguely defined drug taskforce. She will find that her desire to make an impact and her hunger for justice do not always gel. It’s a flawed character who struggles against her naiveté while battling to keep her idealism intact in an operation that vividly encapsulates the murky, complex, and unwholesome battle at our Southern border.

As wonderful as Blunt is, she’s matched step for step by Josh Brolin, as a flippant senior officer who finds humor where most of us would not, and a breathtaking Benicio Del Toro.

Del Toro is at his best as a haunted, mysterious consultant on the case, and his relationship with Blunt’s character is equally menacing and tender.

Villeneuve’s films are dark and challenging, which is certainly the case with Sicario – his most satisfying film to date.

By focusing as intimately as he does on three or four characters, the global picture he paints is anchored, becoming more relevant and comprehensible. Roger Deakins’s weirdly beautiful cinematography mimics the rising panic of Kate’s attempt to soak in every piece of information in her new surroundings, generating an awestruck and terrified depiction of the escalating action.

Villeneuve walks a line between thoughtful drama and all out action film, never abandoning character while still creating arresting, unforgettable action sequences. The opening scene will stay with you, while two different visits to the border – one above ground, one below – are pure cinematic genius.

A tourism advertisement it is not, but Sicario offers an insightful, thrilling glimpse into a possibly unsolvable riddle.

Verdict-4-0-Stars

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Walk of Fame

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The Walk

by George Wolf

If you’ve seen Man on Wire, the Oscar-winning documentary from 2008, you may wonder if The Walk is even necessary (as if Hollywood cares). James Marsh’s look inside the legendary wire walk across the Twin Towers was as poetic as it was thrilling, and it left any other film on the subject a skyscraper-high hill to climb.

The Walk brings together director Robert Zemeckis, star Joseph Gordon-Levitt and some vertigo-inducing wizardry to give the story an newly polished sheen.

Gordon-Levitt is Philippe Petit, the effervescent Frenchman who pulled off the “artistic crime of the century.” In August of 1974, he successfully rigged a wire from the top of one tower to the other and walked across…and back..and back again.

The high whimsy count in the film’s first half could be expected from the director behind Forrest Gump, but it’s also a clear attempt to create a distinct identity for re-telling the tale. Zemeckis, who also co-wrote the script based on Petit’s book, has Gordon-Levitt in character atop the Statue of Liberty, scaling the “fourth wall” and narrating his journey from naive street performer to international sensation.

The overly fantastical narrative loses its charm pretty quickly, never approaching the emotional connection that drove Man on Wire. Gordon-Levitt, though, is a wonderful choice for Petit, with a performance good enough to make those unfamiliar with Petit’s tireless personality think the portrayal is over the top. No, that’s Petit.

The backstory does seems rushed, and when Petit’s team converges on the WTC to put the illegal scheme in motion, you’re not sure he’s earned the right to try it. But if Zemeckis is in a hurry to get Petit out on that wire, you quickly find out why, as questions about the film’s necessity are rebutted once the moment of truth arrives.

Man on Wire could only provide still photos from, as Petit calls it, “the coup,” but The Walk puts you there. Zemeckis and cinematographer Dariusz Wolski (Prometheus) unveil an array of truly wondrous visuals not for the faint of height. As with the recent Everest, this is a film meant to be seen in all its 3D IMAX eye-popping glory

Zemeckis saves any subtlety for where it counts the most, treating the memory of the WTC towers with a welcome, restrained dignity. That, coupled with the breathtaking recreation of a once-in-a-lifetime feat, makes The Walk a worthy trip.

Verdict-3-5-Stars

 

 

 

 

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Does the Sex Part Always Get in the Way?

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Sleeping with Other People

By Christie Robb

The latest rom-com to follow in the footsteps of 1989’s classic When Harry Met Sally is Leslye Headland’s Sleeping with Other People (which was originally pitched as “When Harry Met Sally for Assholes.” It also examines the question of whether heterosexual men and women can be friends.

Like When Harry Met Sally, SWOP starts with a relatively unrealistic flashback scene to college days where unfortunate period clothing choices and bad bangs are supposed to provide sufficient suspension of disbelief for us to see two folks knocking on middle age as dorm inhabitants. Here we meet our romantic leads, Lainey (Alison Brie) and Jake (Jason Sudeikis), two old virgins aching to give it up. He’s waiting for the right person. She’s been scorned by her person. They decide to bone each other.

Flash forward 12 years and Lainey and Jake meet for the second time at a sex addicts meeting. He, having been abandoned by Lainey after one night, only sleeps with women he is comfortable being left by. She’s still addicted to the love of the dude who rejected her in college and is furtively banging him.

Jake and Lainey rekindle their collegiate spark, but because of their issues, decide to keep things platonic, employing a safe word whenever the sex part rears its head. Of course, things get complicated.

Perhaps SWOP doesn’t break new ground in rom-commery, but it’s delightful nonetheless. The aspirational dialogue, reminiscent of Gilmore Girls in its sweeping references, is brainy but also captivatingly nasty. (There’s a whole rant about “juices” and a masturbation demo that some college kids probably should be taking notes on.)

The raunch helps balance out the more saccharine moments. The casting helps as well. Natasha Lyonne (Orange is the New Black) is great, if somewhat underutilized, as Lainey’s gay best friend. Andrea Savage (Dinner for Schmucks) and Jason Mantzoukas (Neighbors) shine as the cool married couple with kids. Billy Eichner (Difficult People/Parks and Recreation) has an amazing little monologue as a sex addict. The only thing really missing is LeBron, who I believe should now be contractually obligated to appear at least once in every rom-com.

Brie and Sudeikis also really work. Their chemistry is believable and they pull off both the smutty repartee and the longing equally well.

Stick around for the end credits.

Verdict-4-0-Stars

 

 

 

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Gonna Fly Hopefully Sometime in the Future

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Sons of Ben

by George Wolf

What if they didn’t give a sports team…and fans cheered anyway?

And what if they kept cheering, long and loud until they couldn’t be ignored?

Find the answers in Sons of Ben, a passionate, and ultimately inspiring documentary on how an unlikely dream came true for a bunch of crazed soccer fans.

When Major League Soccer announced their list of teams for the league’s inaugural season in 1996, Philly native Bryan James and his buddies were pretty disappointed they were not getting a home team to cheer. The disappointment only grew, leading to the realization that there might be “no better way to land a team, than to be fans of a team that doesn’t exist.”

Once that lightbulb came on, the guys got inspired, and someone pitched the name “Sons of Ben,” for their new fan club. It worked not just because of the Ben Franklin angle, but it could easily be shortened to the “S.O.B’s” and that seemed pretty appropriate for the nuisance these guys were committed to becoming.

Armed with a really sweet logo, these guys showed up at as many soccer events as possible, cheering for their non-existent team, until, in James’s words, “sheer luck” got them press coverage, and then the ball started rolling.

Writer/director Jeffrey C. Bell sets a confident, entertaining pace for the fan club’s formation, wisely making it personal when he can. We see the toll that James’s duties as S.O.B president take on his home life, and how easily group members get choked up when talking about the grass roots movement and the meaning it holds in their lives.

Even better, Bell takes us inside the plans to build Philly’s soccer stadium in the downtrodden suburb of Chester. Without getting too heavy-handed, Bell reminds us that in the big business of sports stadiums, promises made are not always promises kept.

The 75 minute running time does feel a bit slight, leaving a few questions unexplored (like who did that logo), but Sons of Ben is an underdog sports story with a unique twist, and a Rocky-sized heart.

Verdict-3-5-Stars

 

 

 

Twitter- @sonsofbenmovie

Facebook- https://www.facebook.com/SoBmovie

Website- www.sonsofbenmovie.com

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Not Easy Being Green

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The Green Inferno

by Hope Madden

Filmmakers often use their work to pay homage to other filmmakers. Sometimes this looks like a direct rip off, but when done well – as it was earlier this year in David Robert Mitchell’s It Follows – it can elevate a picture while generating nostalgia and paying tribute.

It works better if the films you homage were good in the first place, though.

Love him or hate him (and it appears most everyone does one or the other), Eli Roth is one such filmmaker. His latest, The Green Inferno, takes inspiration from a very particular style of film. These cannibal flicks, mostly made by Italians in the late Seventies and early Eighties, dropped naïve Westerners in jungles populated by flesh hungry head hunters.

Roth’s flick does likewise with a set of idealistic college students, including Justine (Lorenza Izzo – Roth’s real life wife). They just want to stop developers in Peru from destroying tribal villages, but when their plane crashes deep in the jungle, they go from activists to appetizers.

The films that inspired Roth’s picture – Ruggero Deodato’s infamous Cannibal Holocaust, in particular – are known for their goretastic imagery, exuberant violence, ethnocentrism, and general taboo-shattering.

Though it’s a slog getting to the action, when Inferno finally does pit student youth group against Peruvian cannibal tribe, blood, limbs, and entrails go flying.

Like most of Roth’s work, there’s a dark and cynical sense of humor underlying the melee. As with his Hostel films, beneath the concussive violence and body part slurry there lies an attempt at political insight. But with Inferno, the traditional heroine arc and confused jabs at political correctness undermine any relevant statement.

Plus, the acting is abysmal, the writing clichéd, and the comic moments are so poorly executed you get the feeling the filmmaker and his writing partners felt equal contempt for characters and audience alike.

For true fans of this particular genre, though, solid performances and stellar writing are hardly the point, but here’s the rub. The Green Inferno feels like nothing more than a neutered Cannibal Holocaust.

Not that we need another Cannibal Holocaust, nor do we probably need to resurrect a genre that died out for reasons as extreme as those associated with the jungle cannibal movie, but if you can’t improve on its weaknesses and you can’t match its bombast, what is the point, exactly?

Verdict-1-0-Star