Category Archives: New In Theaters

Reviews of what’s out now

New In Theaters

The Kevin Smith Movie, Evolved

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Tusk

by Hope Madden

In 2010, I had the chance to interview writer/director Kevin Smith. The proposed subject was Smith’s SModcasts – comic podcasts co-hosted by Smith and his buddy Scott Mosier – but I had other ideas. I knew Smith, a filmmaker most known for his juvenile comedies, was putting the finishing touches on his first horror film, Red State, and I was giddy to find out more about that.

Smith told me, “For years I’ve called myself a filmmaker, but it’s not really true. Really I just make Kevin Smith Movies. I’m at that stage where I could make a Kevin Smith Movie with my eyes closed. Let me see if I can make another movie.”

Too few people saw Red State, a flawed but fascinating film that boasted an absolutely mesmerizing performance by Tarantino favorite Michael Parks, but Smith knew he had something great in this actor. Wisely, when the filmmaker returned to horror with this year’s Tusk, he did so with Parks in tow.

Though Tusk is a surreal, utterly bizarre horror comedy, it is without question Smith’s most personal work as a filmmaker. The film follows a podcaster (Justin Long) who travels to an isolated cabin in Canada to record conversations with a recluse (Parks). The podcaster hopes to bring a good story of a weirdo back for the next show, but this story proves a little too weird.

The basic idea, in fact, comes from one of Smith’s actual SModcasts. He found online a letter from a man seeking a lodger, and he and Mosier read it aloud and mocked the man and giggled – the general MO for the show. But somewhere in all that, Smith found the story of man losing his humanity.

Yes, Tusk is a comic riff on The Human Centipede. It’s also an insightful kind of stress dream, so close to home for Smith that, even with all its utter ludicrousness, it feels almost confessional.

Once again, the greatest strength in the film is a hypnotic performance by Parks as the old seafarer with nefarious motives. He’s magnificent, and Long’s work is strongest when the two share the screen.

Smith’s tone shifts wildly from absurd comedy to real terror, but given the film’s insane premise, the approach works because nothing is ever what you expect. Like Johnny Depp as a French Canadian Inspector Clouseau.

There is no film quite like Tusk, certainly not in Smith’s arsenal, which, I suppose, means this is not a Kevin Smith Movie. And yet, there’s more Smith in this film than in anything else he’s made.

Verdict-3-5-Stars

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Save it for When You’re Sick

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This Is Where I Leave You

by Christie Robb

You’ve probably seen it before: a broken man forced by circumstance to return to his family home and reconnect with the life he had before, somehow, it all went awry. But you probably haven’t seen it with such enormous fake tits.

This Is Where I Leave You is as familiar and unchallenging as a bowl of chicken soup. Shawn Levy’s adaptation of the book by Jonathan Tropper places the spotlight on Jason Bateman’s Judd, a sad-sack who actually sits down for a breath and watches while his boss bones his wife on their marital bed. While couch surfing and growing out his obligatory beard of depression, he receives a phone call from his sister (Tina Fey) informing him that his father has died. His last request: that the kids sit shiva together for a week.

The family gathers with attendant significant others and kidlets and are encouraged by their oversharing, breast-enhanced mom (Jane Fonda), to let it all hang out and really get into the grief.

Like the bowl of chicken soup, you know exactly what you are going to get when you start. Family brawls. Run-ins with old loves. Finding dad’s secret stash of weed… You can ease into a nap worry-free. You’ll be able to figure out what happened before you dig the sleep crusties out of your eye creases.

The ensemble cast works to provide a little spice to an otherwise bland dramedy. Adam Driver (Girls) is great as the black sheep baby of the family and steals every scene that he’s in with a manic, fresh delivery and moments of puppy dog eyed sincerity. His interactions with the rabbi (Ben Schwartz from Parks and Recreation) who cannot shake his childhood nickname, Boner, are particularly delightful.  But the talent mostly drowns in the soppy sentimentality and same-ness of it all.

I’m not saying the flick isn’t worth seeing. Just watch it at home nestled in a blanket, coughing out a lung  with a bottle of NyQuil at your side.

Verdict-2-5-Stars

 

 

 

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Second Helping

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The Trip to Italy

by George Wolf

 

Yes, they do the Michael Caine bit again.

If this news brings a knowing smile to your face, you’ll have a fine time taking The Trip to Italy.

For the uninitiated, the “bit” involves Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon trying to one-up each other in a hilarious battle of Michael Caine impressions. It was a highlight of the 2011 film The Trip, which chronicled their travels to some of the finer restaurants of Northern England. Playing fictionalized versions of themselves, they engaged in joyously witty banter during a stint as food critics for the UK paper The Observer.

As you might guess from its title, the sequel takes the pair on a similar assignment in Italy, where they try to keep tabs on their respective acting careers while enjoying the picturesque locales and tempting cuisine of the region. And, of course, bickering about everything from Alanis Morrisette’s music to Jude Law’s hair.

Director Michael Winterbottom is back at the helm, with good instincts for what this film needs to equal, and often better, the first go round. The simple novelty of the premise may be gone, but there is a subtle deepening of character development, and an all-around breezy warmth that is contagious.

But, those are just tasty side dishes supporting the main course:  two likable chaps given plenty of room to match razor-sharp wits. They display a wonderful chemistry, and complete command over the process of turning droll, deadpan humor into some uproarious moments.

Sporting plenty of laughter, wonderful scenery and delectable looking dishes, don’t be shocked if you leave The Trip to Italy with an urge to call your travel agent.

 

Verdict-4-0-Stars

 

 

New In Theaters

What Is the Meaning of Life?

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The Zero Theorem

By Christie Robb

Director Terry Gilliam questions the meaning of life in The Zero Theorem, but instead of exploring the idea via Monty Python antics, Gilliam approaches the topic in a more Brazil-like satire.

Imagine Times Square having a three-way with CNN’s scrolling text and Facebook ads– a colorful chaos of noise, both aural and visual.

This is the world inhabited by Qohen Leth (Christoph Waltz), a monkish data cruncher who speaks in the royal we. Qohen longs to escape the life of a cubical drone and work from home. He doesn’t want to miss a call-back. Years ago, someone cold called him dangling his personal reason for being. But Qohen dropped the receiver and the line disconnected.

Management, embodied by Matt Damon, grants his request, putting him on a notorious burnout project, the Zero Theorem, its goal to prove that everything adds up to nothing. If Qohen’s project succeeds, Management will help him get his call.

Sidetracked by Management’s constant, unrealistic deadlines, his former supervisor-turned-computer-repairman (David Thewlis), a company-provided AI shrink (Tilda Swinton), Management’s teenage hacker son Bob (Lucas Hedges), and a manic pixie call girl (Mélanie Thierry), Qohen is wooed back toward the little pleasures he’d abandoned.

Zero Theorem is an often beautiful, somewhat heavy-handed film that explores the extremes of hedonism and asceticism, the consequences of living among scads of information and the distractions of virtual reality. Studded with allegory and stuffed with zany Gilliam details that can only be fully explored in subsequent viewings (including a delightful ad for the Church of Batman the Redeemer), it derails a bit in the last act, but fans of Gilliam’s dystopian flicks will find much to enjoy.

Verdict-3-0-Stars

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Good Doggie?

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The Drop

by George Wolf

An accomplished writer and a young director combine talents in The Drop, while a masterful actor walks away with their film.

That would be Tom Hardy, adding fascinating layers to his role as Bob, lead bartender at his cousin Marv’s (James Gandolfini) place in a rough section of New York City.

Well, it used to be Marv’s bar until he, as Bob says, “blinked,” and allowed a takeover by some Chechan gangsters. Now, the bar is often used to launder cash for the foreign mob, and they don’t much like it when Bob and Marv are robbed one night after closing. No doubt, shady characters and double crosses abound, but Bob seems above it all. He’s calm, polite, a bit simple.

Or not.

From the minute Bob rescues a battered pit bull puppy from a trash can, we get the drift:  treat Bob the wrong way, and he may get vicious.

Writer Dennis Lehane, known for the novels that inspired Gone Baby Gone, Mystic River, and Shutter Island, infuses his first screenplay with familiar themes of desperation, regret and redemption. Though not quite as gripping as Lehane’s best work, the story is effective, and in capable hands with director Michael R. Roskam.

In his debut English language feature, Roskam creates a mood of palpable dread and inevitability. Despite a few occasions when his camera gets a bit too fond of gradual focus and Scorcese-esque panning shots, Roskam finds a tone of simmering tension and displays a confident hand with his superior cast.

Gandolfini, in his final role, is customarily great, and there is solid supporting work from Noomi Repace and Matthias Schoenaerts (Rust and Bone), but Hardy is the force driving The Drop. He’s mesmerizing, inhabiting his character so completely it evokes memories of 1950s Brando.

Yep, he’s that good. And the movie ain’t bad either.

 

Verdict-3-5-Stars

 

 

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Heart of the Ocean

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Dolphin Tale 2

by George Wolf

 

After seeing the trailer for Dolphin Tale 2, a friend of mine remarked, “Wow, did someone order extra cheese?”

That’s a good line, and a fair point, but the entire film spreads the schmaltz out much more evenly, resulting in a sweet, satisfying family film.

The entire cast returns from part one, along with director Charles Martin Smith, who also adds writing duties. His workmanlike script is based on more true adventures at the Clearwater Marine Hospital where Winter, the inspirational dolphin with a prosthetic flipper, has been acting strangely.

Her longtime pal Panama has passed away, and if the hospital staff can’t find a suitable replacement  to provide Winter some essential social interaction, they will lose her to a Texas facility. Injured dolphin Mandy might be the answer, but when she recovers enough to return to the open ocean….what to do?

Meanwhile, Winter’s human buddy Sawyer (Nathan Gamble) has been offered a great opportunity to earn college credit on a live-aboard marine biology expedition, but he can’t seem to commit. He’s hesitant to leave not only Winter, but his mother Lorraine (Ashley Judd) and his best friend Hazel (the charming Cozi Zuehlsdorff).

Yes, the symbolism Smith employs with a child leaving the “nest” and an animal in the wild is obvious, but it’s handled in such an earnestly sweet way that the melodrama never becomes overbearing.

Same goes for almost everything in the movie. The characters lack depth, the dialogue is often superficial and the plotting reeks of an after school special…but there’s a mighty big heart here, and a nice message, too.

Together they let Dolphin Tale 2 exist in a world where cynicism doesn’t stand a chance, and sometimes, that’s a refreshing place to be.

 

Verdict-3-0-Stars

 

 

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Whimsical Pop Fantasy

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God Help the Girl

by Hope Madden

A unique take on the movie musical, Stuart Murdock’s God Help the Girl pulls you into the wistful world of Eve (Emily Browning), a damaged young girl whose talent may be her own salvation.

The Belle and Sebastian frontman wrote and directed the quirky drama with the kind of thoughtful flair he brings to his own music. Eve, a singer/songwriter with her own singular artistic vision, struggles to find her place and express her voice in the world. She falls in with fellow musician and delicate soul James (Olly Alexander).

It’s a coming of age tale layered with mental illness, artistic integrity, nonconformity, and a nostalgia for Sixties pop.

Murdock makes some interesting choices early in the film, experimenting with form while charming with this fantasy of hip youngsters in impossibly smashing outfits living their rock and roll dreams. He wisely edges their fanciful days with an uglier, forever threatening reality, giving the tale a melancholy aftertaste that fits the music.

Unfortunately, he doesn’t see his more interesting experiments through. He throws a lot of appealing ideas at the screen – Eve narrating her escape from the institution in a mischievous song, for instance – but drops them as quickly as he brings them up. Rather than a fantastical musical, it becomes a straight drama about starting a band, which loses the charm and forces you to notice the film’s weakness in scripting and acting.

Browning poses well; her acting, though, is not so strong. Alexander, on the other hand, brings something unique but recognizable to the role of the quietly smitten bandmate. And while their delightful adventures can be enjoyable to watch, the film eventually collapses under the weight of its own whimsy.

Murdock and company haven’t built a strong enough foundation for all the froth, leaving you with a film that tries to be provocative and meaningful but winds up settling for adorable.

 

Verdict-2-5-Stars

 

 

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In Like Flynn

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The Last of Robin Hood

by Hope Madden

Errol Flynn was a bad dude, but charming and rich enough to get away with it. Richard Glatzer and Wash Westmoreland’s accounting of his scandalous last days, The Last of Robin Hood, sidesteps the tawdry details and tries to shed some light on how it all could have happened.

For the unenlightened, Flynn is best known for his Hollywood swashbuckling films of the 30s and 40s and just slightly less known for his wicked ways. He died at 50 in the arms of his teenaged lover, whose mother was later charged with contributing to the delinquency of a minor for her involvement in the affair.

The film avoids lurid antics, mercifully, and treats young Beverly Aadland (Dakota Fanning) with respect throughout. Fanning’s performance is an understated wonder, animating a person who accepted people at face value, refused to be a victim, and managed to respect herself though everyone else saw her as a lovable pawn.

Equally wonderful is Susan Sarandon as Beverly’s scheming mother. Layered with desperation, naiveté, cynicism and star-struck gullibility, the performance reminds you of just how talented the veteran is.

As Flynn, Kevin Kline looks surprisingly like the old swashbuckler, but his performance skirts caricature. Worse still, though he certainly manages to showcase Flynn’s charisma and oily charm, he isn’t able to find the ugliness inside. His performance is too generous, which is the film’s greatest weakness. Glazer and Westmoreland seem to hold all involved relatively blameless. For that reason, their film has no teeth.

It’s a curious approach, partly because of the way Lolita – both the book and Stanley Kubrick’s 1962 film – is worked into the narrative. It would appear that Flynn recognized the similarities between his situation and that of Nabakov’s lead. While many would use this fact as an avenue into Flynn’s twisted perception, the film and Kline convey it as almost sadly self congratulatory. The tone is of melancholy rather than repulsion, or even indignation.

Perhaps the filmmakers saw no real villainy in a story where a mother passes her 15-year-old daughter off as 18 and a lecherous old perv takes advantage of the situation. There are certainly those who believe Nabakov dismissed the repugnant behavior of his character. But perhaps Nabakov had faith in a reader who could recognize an unreliable narrator, and he used that device to explore the mind of a predator who can barely recognize his own criminality.

The Last of Robin Hood could have benefitted from the same wry, weary wisdom. Instead, it chooses to point its finger nowhere in particular, leaving us with a villainless tale of a by-gone era where things were less wholesome than we’d imagined.

Verdict-2-5-Stars

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Boys On Film

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Duran Duran: Unstaged

by Hope Madden

What has director David Lynch been up to, you ask? That bastion of all things weird and wonderful nabbed his 4th Oscar nomination for 2001’s dreamy Mulholland Drive, then kind of disappeared.

Well, weep not for David Lynch, for he is living the dream – my dream, anyway. He’s been hanging out with Duran Duran, piecing together a documentary of the best looking boy band ever. Their collaboration, Duran Duran: Unstaged, is a concert doc like no other.

Lynch filmed the band’s live show at the Mayan Theater in Los Angeles, a gig that kicked off their world tour in support of the 2010 album All You Need is Now. Now years removed from the arena tours of the Eighties, the band put together an intimate, strong stage set for this club tour. Lynch later retooled the footage for the theatrical release.

The gig itself – quite unlike the tour that followed – relies heavily on songs from the current album at the expense of many of the band’s sing-a-long Eighties tunes. But frontman Simon LeBon is in excellent voice, and luckily, All You Need is Now is quite a strong effort. While the group does launch into the biggest fan favorites – Rio, Hungry Like the Wolf, Girls on Film – they also fall back on some album cut gems that should thrill longtime Durannies. They also pull out their more underappreciated later hits Come Undone and Ordinary World to beautiful effect.

The event boasts a handful of cool guest appearances, including My Chemical Romance’s Gerard Way on a fun version of Planet Earth, and Gossip’s Beth Ditto, with a lively duet for Notorious. These join four of the band’s original five: LeBon, Nick Rhodes on keyboards, Roger Taylor on drums, and John Taylor on bass.

But the 5th member of the band is clearly Lynch.

Directing a concert documentary can be a thankless, mostly anonymous task. Did you really notice Hal Ashby’s presence during the Stones’ doc Let’s Spend the Night Together? Did even the great Scorsese leave his fingerprints on the same band’s 2008 doc Shine the Light?

Well, you notice Lynch. The auteur overlays tangentially connected images on concert footage in a fashion truly his own. The images range from the absolutely literal to the wildly random, either way lending an air of absurdity to the otherwise straightforward set.

In a press release, Simon LeBon says, “I was particularly delighted with the sausage barbeque sequence during the song Come Undone – something I would never have expected but it works superbly!”

A dreamlike dissonance marks Lynch’s entire film career (with the possible exception of his utterly lovely ’99 effort The Straight Story), and that’s certainly at work here. Sometimes it seems to gel, other times it stands out as almost needlessly bizarre and silly, but who’s to question the inspiration of David Lynch?

It’s certainly a different way to appreciate Duran Duran.

Verdict-3-5-Stars

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Big, Messy Ideas

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The Congress

by George Wolf

 

Tired of the same old girl meets boy stories? How about girl meets a digital version of herself, loses many years in a cryogenic state, and then travels between realities in an effort to reconnect with her son?

Welcome to The Congress, a flawed but often fascinating work inspired by the 1971 novel The Futurological Congress, Stanislaw Lem’s darkly comic allegory of life under communist rule.

Writer/director Ari Folman (the Oscar-nominated Waltz with Bashir) sets his sights on the Hollywood regime, where veteran actress Robin Wright, playing a fictionalized version of herself, has reached a critical point in her career.

She’s years removed from being America’s sweetheart, she’s been branded as “difficult,” and she’s on the wrong side of forty. But now, there’s a curious career opportunity…

After much soul-searching and a big paycheck, she agrees to let the film studio create a digital copy of herself. Once completed, the new Robin will have a busy career doing, in the words of the studio boss (Danny Huston), “all the things your Robin Wright won’t do” while the old Robin never acts again.

The ironic part is that the real Robin’s acting has never been better, and her touching performance anchors the film even when it threatens to skid completely off the rails.

Folman has big, ambitious, eccentric ideas, but things get a bit messy once the film makes the shift to animation. Unlike Bashir, where clashing styles of animation only accentuated the different memories of war, the animated portion of The Congress sometimes struggles to find a tone worthy of the strong live action opening.

It becomes a mix of Heavy Metal, Pink Floyd The Wall and Cool World, leaving some interesting issues hanging as dots that are never fully connected. Folman -who has said he got his first inspiration for the project in film school-seems so invested in the overall concept that he can’t resist the urge to explore every idea, no matter how tenuous.

Good thing, then, that Folman’s explorations are more interesting than most, leaving The Congress as a visionary, frustrating, extraordinary head trip.

 

Verdict-3-0-Stars