Tag Archives: Evan Peters

New In Theaters

The Audacity and the Idiocy

Leave a comment

American Animals

by Hope Madden

In 2012, director Bart Layton laid down one of the most compelling and nutty documentaries in recent history. His true crime doc The Imposter was one of those rare films that you could not predict nor could you turn away from. It was fascinating, and not just because the story was so wild, but because of Layton’s spry skills as a storyteller.

He’s again pulling from the world of true crime to tell a potent story with his latest, the narrative feature American Animals. The yarn he spins here: four perfectly reasonable, likable, comfortable college kids steal a set of pricey books from Transylvania University’s rare books collection, including Darwin’s original Origins of the Species and Audubon’s Birds of America.

The audacity of the plan itself is reason enough to pay attention. Buddies get the itch to do something big. Something life-changing. Consequences be damned. Or, more rightly, ignored.

Build from there with a truly talented group of young actors: Evan Peters (X-Men’s Quicksilver), Barry Keoghan (Killing of a Sacred Deer, Dunkirk – the kid can do no wrong), Jared Abrahamson (Sweet Virginia, Detour) and Blake Jenner (Everybody Wants Some).

Layton opens with text on screen: This is not based on a true story. The words “not based on” disappear, leaving: This is a true story.

A bold statement to make, and American Animals is as interested in the effect individual perspective plays on true stories as Craig Gillespie’s I, Tonya or Sarah Polley’s near-perfect 2012 documentary, Stories We Tell.

Once again, Layton blends fiction and nonfiction devices to question the possibility of honesty in storytelling. As he weaves from actors recreating the heist to the actual participants telling their versions of events, Layton poses intriguing questions about perspective and truth.

They aren’t questions he answers, though, or even truly explores.

The film works best when it digs into the American preoccupation with unlimited potential, the individual’s specialness. The four young men who risk their futures unnecessarily suffer from that curse of the restlessly entitled.

As you watch the inevitable collapse of a reckless gang of kids’ movie-inspired heist, American Animals suggests depth and introspection but feels more like it’s grasping for a suitable ending, an appropriate way to cap all this madness with a bit of insight.

The problem with the film is the problem with the heist itself: it was fun while it lasted, but was there really a purpose?

New In Theaters

Lazy Lazarus

Leave a comment

The Lazarus Effect

by Hope Madden

Four years ago filmmaker David Gelb directed the lovely, layered, joyous documentary Jiro Dreams of Sushi. This weekend we see his newest effort, The Lazarus Effect. What the hell happened?

Gelb abandons novelty and nuance for a by-the-numbers Frankenstein horror. Medical researchers work on a cure for death. Big Pharm is looking to steal their ideas for nefarious gain. Think Splice.

The scientists test their process on animal subjects, but make the leap to human trials a tad prematurely when one of the team-Zoe (Olivia Wilde) – is electrocuted. Things do not go well. Think Pet Sematary.

The serum super-powers Zoe’s brain. Think Lucy.

But Zoe may have been brought back from hell, and may have brought some of hell back with her. Think Event Horizon. Or Flatliners.

It appears screenwriters Luke Dawson and Jeremy Slater have seen enough movies to be able to cobble together plenty of stale ideas to fill 83 minutes, although you will swear the film runs two full hours.

Part of the problem is the blandness of the set. For most of the running time we’re trapped in the hospital’s sub-basement with the doomed scientists. This should create anxiety, develop claustrophobic dread, but the dull set and uninspired direction do little but breed tedium.

Gelb can generate tension now and again, but he doesn’t know how to deliver the payoff. The film is so paint-by-numbers – from the greedy chemical company to the dream sequence, from the dog to the unrequited love to the twist ending – there’s nary a surprise to be found.

Wilde and cast (Mark Duplass, Evan Peters, Sarah Bolger and Donald Glover) can’t bring depth to their characters, though Wilde does give it a shot. There’s more to Zoe than what’s on the page, but not nearly enough to keep the film interesting.

There are plenty of awful horror movies, and The Lazarus Effect is not one of them. It’s succinct, tidy, offers a jolt or two, and it’s held together workmanlike-fashion with enough logic and borrowed ideas to remain lucid for as long as it needs to. But horror also has some great films to offer, and this is certainly not one of those. It’s a disposable February flick and a genuine disappointment from Gelb.

Verdict-2-0-Stars

New In Theaters

Welcome to Adulthood! Yes, It Does Suck

Leave a comment

Adult World

by Hope Madden

“Fame is your generation’s Black Plague.” So says Rat Billings (John Cusack), world-wearied poet and reluctant mentor to naïve college grad and would-be poet, Amy (Emma Roberts).

Rat has lots of good lines – he is a poet, after all – about the strange era of newly formed adults who grew up working toward fame for fame’s sake. “Generation Mundane” he calls them.

Unbeknownst to Amy, she herself fits that description, and that irony is at the heart of the bright indie comedy Adult World. The chemistry at the heart of the film belongs to Roberts and Cusack.

When Roberts’s Amy leaves the nest 90K in college debt with no marketable skill (her degree is in poetry, after all), she takes a job at an old style porn shop. There, a unique and fascinating world revolves around her, but she’s too busy “feeling, deeply feeling” to notice. Which is, of course, the problem with her artistry – she’s trying to write when she has refused to live, so what could she have to write about?

We watch as Amy refuses to participate in life, insulated from the world by her misguided, socially-instilled belief in her own specialness. Thankfully, director Scott Coffey’s film – scripted with refreshing self-deprecation by Andy Cochran – is rarely too overt with its theme. Sometimes, sure, and you would never call the film exactly subtle. But it has some real freshness to offer instead.

While the cast on the whole is quite solid, Roberts really hits high gear in scenes with Cusack. When these characters are together we get to see each at his or her most potent. Films rarely offer such undiluted presences. Neither actor is afraid to embrace what is unlikeable about their own character, and their scenes together are a kind of joyous celebration of flaws. A giddy artistic energy flows between the two performers that is a blast to watch.

Not every pairing goes as well. Amy’s onscreen love interest is played by Roberts’s offscreen love (and American Horror Story co-star) Evan Peters. Though their romance is sweet, its course is also predictable.

Worse still, the great Cloris Leachman is underused, and Armando Riesco’s drag queen is tacked onto the story sloppily and without real meaning.

Still, much of this story rings true, and the approach taken to poke fun at Generation Mundane is clever and well-intentioned. More than anything, though, it’s great to see Cusack running on all cylinders and matched so well.

 

Verdict-3-0-Stars