Category Archives: New In Theaters

Reviews of what’s out now

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Pro-Honesty

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Obvious Child

by George Wolf

 

Obvious Child is at times funny, crude, poignant, sad and awkward- kinda like life. And through it all, it is a film that feels honest – so much so that it’s hard to believe the lead actor didn’t also write the screenplay.

Writer/director Gillian Robespierre expands her 2009 short film and again casts Jenny Slate as Donna, a twenty-something bookstore clerk who does standup comedy by night. After her boyfriend takes her to dumpsville, Donna rebounds by hooking up with preppy Max (Jake Lacy)…only to find herself knocked up by preppy Max.

To paint this film as the “abortion rom-com” is both understandable and unfair. While the comedic approach it takes to such a polarizing issue all but guarantees a controversial label, Obvious Child is far from single-minded.

Robespierre brings a refreshingly casual frankness to a collection of life snapshots, all echoing with authenticity. There’s no pretense or judgement, and only a hint of the self-absorption that often plagues similar dramadies (yes, Girls).

And the neurotic thread running through it all is the strange compulsion to unburden the soul for perfect strangers in a comedy club.

Slate (Kroll Show/Parks and Recreation/SNL) is letter-perfect as a woman whose brutally personal comedy routines seem to be her only outlet for confronting anything personal in her life. The situation with Max becomes her wake-up call.

Perhaps most surprisingly, Robespierre transforms a 23 minute short film into a nearly 90 minute feature without tacking on superfluous filler. It all works, from Donna’s relationship with her parents (Polly Draper, Richard Kind) to the support from her loyal best friend (Gaby Hoffman).

Obvious Child delights in exploring roads that are rarely traveled in romantic comedies – but don’t expect a parody. As Jimmy Buffett has often said about his song Why Don’t We Get Drunk (and Screw), this is a love story…from a different point of view.

 

Verdict-3-5-Stars

 

 

 

New In Theaters

Not Max, But Plenty Mad

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The Rover

by George Wolf

 

Make it 2 for 2 for Australia’s David Michod, and I’m not talking World Cup penalty kicks.

Four years ago, Michod served up Animal Kingdom, an utterly compelling feature-length debut as writer and director.

The Rover is his follow up, and much like its predecessor, it takes a measured approach to getting under your skin.

The setting is an Australian wasteland, ten years after a “collapse.” We assume it’s a financial one, as we see Eric (Guy Pearce) angrily tell a man selling gasoline that “it’s just paper..money doesn’t mean anything anymore!”

When three men, fleeing from some sort of bloody incident, wreck their car, they steal Eric’s, which will not do. Though he quickly gets their stalled car running again, Eric’s not interested in a straight-up trade. He wants his car back. Badly.

One of the fleeing men, Henry, has left something behind:  his “dim-witted” brother Rey (Robert Pattinson). When Rey crosses paths with Eric, one brother is soon forced to hunt the other across the barren, desolate miles.

Don’t let the quick cuts in the trailer fool you, the story often feels as empty as the strikingly- filmed landscape. But Michod’s deliberate pace slowly sets in your bones, fueled by the two lead performances.

Pearce is mesmerizing, sketching the intense edges of a mysterious traveler. Where was he going in the first place, and why is he so deadly accurate with that rifle? What’s so important about his car?

Pattinson slams the door on all those “Team Edward” jokes with a breakout performance. Reaching depths of nuance he’s never before displayed, Pattinson brings heartbreak to Rey’s conflicting allegiances without ever copping out to melodrama.

Michod also peppers the trip with indelible vignettes, as smaller, unique characters float in and out of the tale to fully portray a brutal, desperate world that feels shockingly possible.

In many ways, The Rover is a throwback to classic Westerns, with a nearly anonymous figure on a bloody, single- minded mission for revenge. You may scoff at the simplicity of the finale, but I’m betting you’ll find yourself thinking about it long afterward.

 

Verdict-3-5-Stars

 

 

 

New In Theaters

Think Seriously About Skipping This

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Think Like a Man Too

by Hope Madden

The single most surprising thing about 2012’s Think Like a Man may have been that I did not hate it. The film identifies five potential couples, highlights relationship flaws, then advises the women on how to re-train and trap their men.

Gross.

And yet, as the misguided, sexist, illogical “comedy” unfurled, I began to believe that Kevin Hart could perhaps save any bad film by virtue of his inexhaustible humor.

This theory has been put to the test, as it appears the poor man is destined never to get a script for anything other than a bad movie: Ride Along, About Last Night, Grudge Match – good Lord, Grudge Match!

So, while Hart proves his own talent time and again, he’s also proven that no one human man can possibly save every bad movie director Tim Story wants to make. Case in point: Think Like a Man Too.

We check back in on all the happy couples of the previous installment as they meet in Vegas for one duo’s nuptials. But first, they will divide on gender lines for bachelor/bachelorette parties.

Nothing says fresh like a bachelor party movie set in Vegas.

Actually, stale is an excellent word to describe this lifeless retread. Story regurgitates every overused image and idea from about a dozen movies and a lengthy Vegas ad campaign. Do you think there’s an ultra-luxurious suite? How about some glamorous poolside action? Gambling antics? Rain Man mentions?

Don’t tell me there are strippers?!!

Why, yes, you can expect drunken debauchery (though nothing too raunchy that it can’t be forgiven) that leads to a race to make the ceremony.

I swear to God, it wouldn’t have surprised me to find out there was a tiger in the bathroom.

You know what might have been interesting? An Omaha wedding.

Instead, we get more and more and excruciatingly more of the same, shoveled shamelessly at us in the hopes that Hart can somehow make it funny.

Well, he can’t. The man is not superhuman. And that means there’s nothing at all to distract you from everything that is wrong with this film – which is everything.

 

Verdict-1-5-Stars

 

 

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It’s a Jersey Ting!

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Jersey Boys

by George Wolf

The end credits in Jersey Boys roll over a musical number that bursts suddenly with toe-tapping exuberance. While it’s a fine way to send an audience home smiling, it’s also an unfortunate reminder of one of the elements missing from the previous 130-odd minutes.

Director Clint Eastwood’s film version of the Tony award-winning tribute to the Four Seasons ends up caught in an awkward space between stage and screen. Either Eastwood had too much reverence for the source material, or too little concern for what differentiates successful projects on stage and on film.

Eastwood stocks the cast with stage veterans, starting at the top, with John Lloyd Young reprising his award-winning Broadway role as lead singer Frankie Vallli. Valli has one of the most unique voices in pop music history, and though Young can’t match it, he comes impressively close.

Still, the musical numbers are strangely lacking in punch. Though the songs are instantly recognizable, the performances are filmed with a detached, esoteric quality, lacking the period authenticity of Alison Anders’s Grace of My Heart or the joyous fun of Tom Hanks’s That Thing You Do.

Screenwriters Marshall Brickman and Rick Elice adapt their own musical book with a condensed version of the Rashomon-style storytelling utilized on the stage. Group members Tommy DeVito, Nick Massi, Bob Gaudio and Valli still offer conflicting, first-person views on their shared history, but the melodramatic tone mutes any possible resonance.

Many of the performances seem equally forced, as Eastwood can’t get the theatre-trained actors to dial it down and realize they no longer need to emote for the folks in the back row.

Eastwood does make the effort to include his requisite nods to Catholicism, as well as cheesy in-jokes on actor Joe Pesci’s pivotal role in Four Seasons history, and the director’s own “spaghetti western” background.

Ultimately, the boy’s rise from petty criminals to Rock and Roll Hall of Fame members deserves better. Jersey Boys keeps their story at arm’s length, never bringing any intimacy or magic to the screen adaptation. It may well leave you humming a few tunes, but that’s about as deep an impression as it makes.

 

Verdict-2-5-Stars

 

 

New In Theaters

An Invitation to Lose Yourself

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Stand Clear of the Closing Doors

by Hope Madden

Sam Fleischner intends to take you somewhere, and though you may have been there before, it was never like this.

Stand Clear of the Closing Doors shadows Ricky (Jesus Sanchez-Velez), an autistic middle school student, on a day he decides to follow an interesting pair of shoes rather than going home after school. This is, in a nutshell, the entire story. Ricky ends up on the New York City subway, and no one else is aware. As he spends days on end circling the city underground, we’re treated to the character study of a character we can’t really hope to understand. And yet, almost magically, it works.

Though Fleischner has only one other directing credit, he’s logged some serious hours over the years as a cinematographer, a skill he puts to good use here. Rockaway Beach and NYC’s subway system provide not just backdrop, but become full characters in the film. Fleischner lenses the local flavors, color and sound in a way that is equal parts fascinating and terrifying, allowing us to experience them in just the way Ricky does.

Meanwhile, above ground, Ricky’s overworked, undocumented mother – played with an authentic mixture of relentlessness, stoicism and anger by Andrea Suarez Paz – searches helplessly.

A confluence of factors adds to the raising dread the film effectively develops, until you worry you’re trapped in a nightmare. It’s an absorbing hundred minutes or so, without a hint of hyperbole or a single false note – an honesty built mostly on Sandchez-Velez’s performance.

The actor, making his screen debut, offers none of the dramatic flair associated with recent onscreen depictions of autism, possibly because he carries an Asperger’s diagnosis himself. The subdued sorrow he brings to the performance is heartbreaking.

But you will need to be patient because Fleischner certainly is. Nothing is rushed, but everything matters: the newspapers littering the trains, the ads behind Ricky’s head, bumper stickers stuck randomly throughout the tunnels and trains. The film is asking us to lose ourselves the way Ricky has, but to notice things, too, just as he does.

It’s a rewarding and frightening experience. In fact, the quiet brilliance of Stand Clear of the Closing Doors is that it is so honestly observed that it feels universal.

 

Verdict-4-0-Stars

 

New In Theaters

Happy Anniversary, OJ

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OJ: The Musical

by Hope Madden

Wondering how best to celebrate the 20th anniversary of that bat-shit white Bronco freeway chase? (That’s right- it’s been twenty years!) Jeff Rosenberg has you covered with his new film, OJ: The Musical.

This little slice of theatrical genius shadows aspiring thespian and/or nutjob Eugene Olivier via mocumentary as he follows his muse. Eugene leaves the Big Apple behind to take on that theatrical hotbed, Hollywood, recruiting old friends and attempting to put on the “next great American musical” – an adaptation of Shakespeare’s Othello, reworked to mirror the OJ Simpson case.

Writer/director/producer Rosenberg has a degree in playwriting from Ohio University, and his insider knowledge of the theatrical process is put to good use here. His script is sharp witted but soft hearted, his attitude generous but entirely comical.

Eugene, played with manic good nature by Rosenberg’s longtime collaborator Jordan Kenneth Kamp, is a doughy ball of denial, vulnerability, goofiness and arrested development. His is a unique but entirely recognizable character, and Kamp nails it.

Rosenberg’s piece does not trod entirely new ground, despite the unusual stageplay at its center. You can’t help but measure it against other drolly comedic mocumentaries by the master of the genre, Christopher Guest. And with a musical at its heart, it bears a resemblance to much of the work of Trey Parker and Matt Stone – heady company, but OJ holds its own.

OJ is not as dry as Guest’s work, nor as confrontational as the South Park output. Instead, it finds an understated, amiable place between.

Though the film is too slow in spots, it overcomes pacing lags with rampant unpredictability. And though Kemp is clearly the star of this show, the whole ensemble sparkles as it lovingly skewers the earnestness of that “show must go on” attitude.

The way the Bard’s tragedy, OJ’s case and Eugene’s journey come together is subdued brilliance. The play itself, in the final act, is hysterical, but nothing in the film draws as many laughs as the new idea brainstorming over the credits.

Brimming with insider insight, compassion, wisdom and humor, OJ: The Musical articulates the lovable absurdity of drama.

Verdict-4-0-Stars

New In Theaters

Something Special in the Air

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How to Train Your Dragon 2

by George Wolf

They had me at “Drago Bloodfist.”

Actually, they had me four years ago, when the original How to Train Your Dragon was not only one of the best films of 2010, but one of the most visually stunning 3D films ever.

Part 2 may fall a hair short of those original lofty heights, but you can still expect an exhilarating, often eye-popping family adventure.

Writer/director Dean DeBlois returns to catch us up with Hiccup (voiced by Jay Baruchel) and his dragon, Toothless, five years after they showed their village that dragons and Vikings can be buddies after all.

Things aren’t so harmonious in neighboring villages, as the evil pirate Bloodfist (Djimon Hounsou) has his henchmen always on the hunt, looking to capture new additions for a growing dragon army. Hiccup favors reasoning with the pirates but his father, Chief Stoick the Vast, (Gerard Butler) prefers a pre-emptive strike.

With obvious parallels to current global terrorism, HTTYD2 offers more mature, darker themes, but wisely doesn’t overplay this hand. The franchise, with part 3 already on the way, continues to be anchored by the bonds of family and friends, and the special relationship that can develop between man and beast.

What may make the younger viewers start to fidget are two backstory sequences, one involving Bloodfist and another featuring Hiccup’s mother Valka (Cate Blanchett). Though hardly fatal flaws, the compelling nature of the story begins to wander away, safely returning when Hiccup and Toothless get back into focus.

As the showdown between pirates and Vikings draws near, the visual elements continue to impress. With an assist from esteemed cinematographer Roger Deakins, the effects department again illustrates the glorious possibilities of 3D animation. The in-flight sequences make the heart race, and when Valka runs to the edge of a cliff to grasp the size of the approaching armada below, the aerial shot is simply breathtaking.

Boasting inspired storytelling, magical visuals and enough subtle, real world sensibility to give it resonance, HTTYD2 keeps this franchise crackling with vitality.

 Verdict-3-5-Stars

 

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Get Ready, Get Ready to Jump

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22 Jump Street

by Hope Madden

I’m not sure how it is that Phil Lord and Christopher Miller keep surprising us. By now, no matter how inane the project may sound, we should expect big things from the directors of Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, 21 Jump Street and The Lego Movie. And yet, who’d have guessed they’d deliver the goods yet again with their sequel, 22 Jump Street?

Self-aware without being glib, and fueled by the same good-hearted energy that marks the duo’s work, the film is both a hilarious send up of sequels, and the natural progression of a bro-mance. Schmidt (Jonah Hill) and Jenko (Channing Tatum) go undercover in college, where a new drug has killed a kid and may go global if it isn’t contained. This, except for the college part, is the identical plot of the first installment. Of course, that’s on purpose.

The meta-sequel is short on character development, but does take some time to explore a relationship that may have grown stale, that spark in their partnership starting to dim. Is it time for Jenko and Schmidt to investigate other suspects?

Rampant silliness continues to be the driving force in the franchise, and Hill and Tatum – as the doughy neurotic and chiseled dunderhead, respectively – are enjoyably, even masterfully silly. Again.

Expect a lot of the same, but enough differences to make the bumbling police work fun, and more than enough sight gags and wordplay to distract you from any other weaknesses. A little slam poetry, one walk of shame, and an unexpected Benny Hill bit are some highlights from a film absolutely littered with jokes. Some hit, some miss, but they just keep coming.

The always-dastardly Peter Stormare lends his talents in the villain role, while Jillian Bell (Workaholics) and Nick Offerman contribute their share of deadpan laughs. There are some pretty great cameos, as well, but I cannot tell you how much I hoped to see James Franco when the investigation headed to the beach for Spring Break.

Besides that missed opportunity, 22 suffers from a few lags in its otherwise frantic momentum. It would have behooved Lord and Miller to trim about 10 minutes from the effort – just not the ten that play over the credits, brainstorming assignment after assignment, sequel after sequel, in glorious fashion.

Whatever its faults, like its predecessor, 22 Jump Street is no classic but it is good for a lot of laughs. Few have made “more of the same” look so good.

Verdict-3-5-Stars

 

 

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v9S_dYuq0vE

New In Theaters

Flirting in the Teacher’s Lounge

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Words and Pictures

by George Wolf

 

What the? A summer movie aimed squarely at adults?

Where are the superheroes? Where are the explosions? Where’s the teen angst?

Even with its faults, Words and Pictures feels like a cool breeze in July, as clever repartee and winning performances combine for a throwback to classic, feel-good romance films of decades past.

And true to that spirit, our romantics start out as sparring adversaries.

Jack (Clive Owen) teaches honors English at a prep school. His promise as a writer is a distant memory, and he eases the self-loathing with constant word-game challenges to his fellow teachers, and plenty of alcohol. His antics on both fronts have led to his job hanging in the balance.

Dina (Juliette Binoche) is a respected artist struggling with failing health. She arrives at the school to teach honors art, and is immediately put off by Jack’s confrontational nature.

The confrontations escalate once Jack’s students tell him the new art teacher’s mantra:  pictures are more vital than words.

Oh, no she dih-eh!

Like many of us of a certain age, screenwriter Gerald Di Pego is clearly chagrined at how society devalues not only the classic works of art and literature, but their very building blocks: images and prose. That complaint may not be new, but Di Pego finds some fun while pointing out that it’s still very relevant.

His script still has minefields aplenty – contrived situations, superfluous subplots and oversimplified personal demons – and Fred Schepisi’s lackluster direction doesn’t help, but Owen and Binoche are good enough to rise above it. They make every one of their scenes together a sublime delight.

You’ll have no trouble figuring out where Words and Pictures is going, but the witty wordplay and frisky chemistry of two veteran talents make it worth seeing through.

 Verdict-3-0-Stars

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ehQimFhQmQg

New In Theaters

Romance Porn

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The Fault in Our Stars

by George Wolf

With Don Jon last year, Joseph Gordon-Levitt wondered if maybe, idealized romance fantasies can be as harmful to actual relationships as pornography.

The Fault in Our Stars is just the latest example to make his point.

Based on the best seller by John Green, it centers on an ordinary teenage girl (who of course narrates, to reinforce the feeling for the teenage girls watching that it’s their story, too). But she’s not really ordinary, she’s just waiting for that dreamy boy to come into her life and instantly see the special snowflake that she truly is, forsaking everything in his own life to make sure she feels special every special second of every special day.

Shailene Woodley stars as Hazel, a young cancer patient who dreads her support group, but goes just to make her parents happy. Then, one day, Augustus Waters (Ansel Elgort) comes to group, takes one look at Hazel and is instantly infatuated.

So, this time, the young lovers have to deal with cancer, adding an extra layer of manipulation opportunity to be explored.

Early on, Hazel expresses disdain for those unrealistic stories where “nothing is too messed up that can’t be fixed with a Peter Gabriel song.” Then, guess what? Some of those songs on the soundtrack are nothing more than bad Peter Gabriel rip-offs.

Woodley is a gifted actress, and does manage to bring some depth to Hazel, who admittedly is the most well-rounded character in the script. Augustus is a one-dimensional mess, and Elgort (“Tommy” in the recent Carrie remake) can do little more than cast adoring glances and mug for the camera. But really, that’s what he’s there for, anyway.

Movies like this (and The Perks of Being a Wallflower, and The Spectacular Now, and…) want you to believe their characters are unconventional and their message is insightful, when the exact opposite is true.

The Fault in Our Stars is the same old bill of goods.

Verdict-2-0-Stars