Opening in New York, May 24, 2013

It’s sequelitis in the multiplexes this Memorial Day weekend. The biggest opening is Fast and Furious 6 (61), which is getting a “dumb but fun” response from critics. It’s a critic-proof movie anyway. I will not see it, as I’ve missed installments 2-5 and would be hopelessly lost. Neil Genzlinger: Hobbs is again played by Dwayne Johnson and his biceps, which get enough camera time that you expect the closing credits to include two arm wranglers, one for each. Mr. Johnson has seemingly been in every movie released in the last two years and has a reality television show, “The Hero,” coming on TNT. But he knows how to deploy his half-dozen expressions — the sly grin, the single-eyebrow arch — and is still a welcome sight, where other actors might by this point be overexposed.”

Butting heads with FF6 is The Hangover III (31). The commercial looked pretty funny, making me think I would see it, despite missing part II. Alas, I guess, as is often the case, everything that was funny is in the commercial. Stephen Holden: “For “The Hangover Part III,” directed by Todd Phillips from a screenplay he wrote with Craig Mazin, is a dull, lazy walkthrough that along with “The Big Wedding” has a claim to be the year’s worst star-driven movie.”

For the kiddies is Epic (54), a sort of Avatar meets Horton Hears a Who, about tiny creatures that live in the forest, or some such. Apparently it is visually stunning while being weak in narrative. Holden: “As you watch its characters zoom through a lush forest on the backs of hummingbirds, the gorgeous 3-D adventure comedy “Epic” suggests a warmer, fuzzier “Avatar,” with a green heart. Directed by Chris Wedge, the movie is a hymn to nature rendered in phantasmagoric detail as refined as anything I’ve seen in a computer-animated family film. But as beautiful as it is, “Epic” is fatally lacking in visceral momentum and dramatic edge.”

In limited release is at least one major film, the every-nine-years story of two lovers in Before Midnight (98!), the third film in the “Before” series. I enjoyed the first two, and I’m sure I’ll get a chance to see this one. A.O. Scott: “Before Sunrise,” “Before Sunset” and “Before Midnight” are modest, charming movies that together add up to the great romantic epic of a generation defined, in the popular mind and our therapists’ offices, by hedged bets, easy ironies and perpetual confusion. Mr. Linklater’s shooting style is so graceful and unobtrusive, and Mr. Hawke and Ms. Delpy inhabit their characters with such conviction, that the challenge and originality of the movies are easy to overlook.” Quick story–I played hooky from work and saw Before Sunset. Coming out of the theater, I was interviewed by Entertainment Tonight about my thoughts on the movie, and I guess I was articulate enough–they aired a few seconds of me on the show, which is, I think the only time I have spoken on television.

In addition is The English Teacher (41), a film starring Julianne Moore as a spinster educator who tries to put on a play by an ex-student in her school. Holden: “Although this sad, upsetting story raises serious moral issues, it is treated so lightly that it feels weightless. The acting, especially Ms. Moore’s, is solid. But her strong, sympathetic performance fails to transform “The English Teacher” into anything more than a sitcom devoid of laughs, except for a soupçon of literary humor. It is a movie at odds with itself.”

The biggest find of the weekend may be Fill the Void, (83) the first feature film by an Orthodox Jewish woman. It is set in the Hasidic community, a big mystery to most of us, and is said by many critics to have the structure of a Jane Austen novel. Scott: “The deeper drama of “Fill the Void” has to do with her self-knowledge, and it is this — the sense we have of witnessing a young person figuring herself out in the most challenging circumstances — that makes the film both accessible and thrilling. It is completely unexpected, and entirely believable.”

Review: Star Trek Into Darkness

“I’m a Vulcan–I embrace technicalities!” Not only should this line immediately be put on a t-shirt, but it’s indicative of how much fun the new Star Trek is. The second directed by J.J. Abrams, focusing on the TV characters as younger people, Star Trek Into Darkness is even more fun that Iron Man 3.

I’ve never been a big Star Trek fan. I’m neither Trekkie nor Trekker, and I can’t recite chapter and verse from the episodes of the TV show. I think I’ve seen all of the movies, though, from the original cast through the Next Generation cast. None of them have made me so giddy or tapped into my teenage self than this one.

And it is a movie ideally suited for teenage boys, down to the shot of Alice Eve in her bikini underwear. It has lots of action, lots of comedy, a great villain (no spoiling here) and even takes a stand on drone warfare. I had a smile plastered on my face throughout.

The film begins mid-adventure, like the opening of Raiders of the Lost Ark, at the conclusion of an encounter with a stone age population. Kirk (Chris Pine) makes a decision to save Spock (Zachary Quinto) which violates the prime directive, and Kirk gets busted for it. But then a terrorist attack reorganizes everything, and Kirk and Spock, along with Sulu, Uhuru, and Chekov, who ends up running around the engine room like Billy Bibbit, are back on the Enterprise.

But not Scotty. Star Fleet has loaded 72 torpedoes to be used on the terrorist, identified as John Harrison and played with stiff-upperlip Britishness by Benedict Cumberbatch. He’s hiding on the Klingon planet (is it just called Klingon?) The admiral (Peter Weller) is itching to start a war with Klingons, but Kirk disobeys orders and captures Cumberbatch instead. We learn who he really is (does anyone not know? I’ll keep mum just in case) and all sorts of shifting alliances take place. The plot is kind of a mess–I’m never quite sure what the villain wants–but who cares?

As with the first film, this one is stolen by Quinto as Spock. Maybe the purists object, but Quinto’s Spock is one with a sense of humor. He’s even romantically involved with Uhuru, which I’m not sure I like but hey, go for it, you kids. When hearing that the two are having a fight, Kirk wonders aloud, “What’s that like?” The spine of the film is that we do anything for family, and that a crew can be a family, whether it’s the villains or whether it’s the bromance between Kirk and Spock. And just how great is it to see Spock kick ass at the end of the film?

While the action isn’t always superior–sometimes it’s just stuff blowin’ up–I did like a sequence that has Pine and Cumberbatch hurtling through space like bullets. There’s also a fight scene with Klingons, and a little trouble comes to San Francisco (nice to see the trolley cars are still running in the future though). But action aside, what makes this movie so much fun is the dialogue. The banter among Kirk, Spock, and McCoy is pleasure, and yes, McCoy does get to say a “I’m a doctor, not a …” line. The writing and acting is able to make these characters identifiable without being caricatures. They’d be great to be around.

If all that isn’t enough, there’s even a tribble.

My grade for Star Trek Into Darkness: A-.

Hitchcock: The Birds

This year marks the 50th anniversary of Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds, which concluded a remarkable four-picture run for Hitch: North By Northwest, Vertigo, and Psycho coming before. Talk amongst yourselves: has there been a better streak? One possibility is Francis Coppola’s Godfather-The Conversation-The Godfather, Part II-Apocalypse Now. Other suggestions welcome.

Anyway, The Birds, loosely based on a story by Daphne DuMaurier, is a change of pace for Hitchcock in a few ways, though it still rests on the suspense he was best known for. In a way, this is a horror story, as people aren’t the problem, it’s nature run amok, as the small coastal town of Bodega Bay is attacked by all species of birds. No particular reason is given (in the real-life inspiration to the story, pesticide was to blame) and the ending is ambiguous. Many people refer to this film as a poem, in that there isn’t the typical structure of a narrative.

The film begins with a lawyer, Rod Taylor, meeting a socialite (Tippi Hedren) in the bird department of a pet store. They’re on opposite sides of a lawsuit, but despite the initial hostility are attracted to each other. So much so that Hedren, a prankster, drives all the way from San Francisco to Bodega Bay to deliver a pair of lovebirds. But there there are ominous signs, such as when a gull hits her on the head, and then sparrows flood into Taylor’s house through the chimney.

The film is a slow-boiler. We go through some typical Hitchcock stuff, such as the monstrous mother (this time played by Jessica Tandy, though she is allowed to soften toward the end) and the icy blonde. Hitchcock wanted Grace Kelly, who was by now a princess, and ended up discovering Hedren, who was not a very good actress and who has pretty bad things to say about him now.

But Hedren’s limited range doesn’t interfere with Hitchcock’s suspense. There are two notable uses to camera–one is the schoolhouse attack, as Hedren sits on a bench and behind her crows slowly gather on monkeybars. The resulting attack on running schoolchildren has some ludicrously bad special effects, compared with today, but the way Hitchcock sets it up has us ignore the effects and realize the terror.

The second is when birds attack Hedren while she’s in a phone booth. In some ways the cutting is like the shower murder in Psycho–the cuts are so fast and precise that the scene comes across as a blur, but again, the terror is intact. I also love the edit as Hedren watches, horrified, as a flaming stream of gasoline travels toward the gas pumps, igniting a fireball.

The final act of the film, when Taylor, Hedren and family batten the hatches as the birds assault their house, is also bravura filmmaking. It just goes to show how the banal, when presented as a threat, can be just as scary as monsters from space.

The ending has no defeat of the birds–how would one conquer the world of birds. There’s a great sequence when an old lady ornithologist (Ethel Griffies) tells everyone how many birds there are. She also says that they don’t attack humans. When she’s proven wrong, all she can do is sit quietly, breathing heavily. Instead the ending is completely up in the air, a stalemate. In some old B-films, there would be a title card that would say The End? This is one of those films. It is one of Hitchcock’s finest; his last really great film.

Opening in New York, May 17, 2013

I’ll keep this short due to the lateness.

The big multiplex opening this weekend is Star Trek Into Darkness (73) which I saw today and loved. It’s even better than Iron Man 3. I’m not a Star Trek guy, but it’s easily the best of the entire series. My review will be up tomorrow. For now, here’s A. O. Scott: “The half-man, half-Vulcan at the center of those relationships — and also the logical thorn in the emotive side of Dr. McCoy (Karl Urban) — is one of the great characters in American popular culture, and Mr. Quinto slyly and respectfully revises our sense of him. His performance is witty and self-aware but also entirely serious, and his Spock is at once the ship’s stoical straight man and the guy with all the best jokes.”

The art house opening is Frances Ha (81), directed by Noah Baumbach, co-written by him and his star, Greta Gerwig, as a 27-year-old woman who’s having trouble growing up. Gerwig, who I suppose will always be known as the queen of mumblecore, is a terrific performer, one who could become the next Kate Winslet. Scott: “With its swift, jaunty rhythms and sharp, off-kilter jokes, “Frances Ha” is frequently delightful. Ms. Gerwig and Mr. Baumbach are nonetheless defiant partisans in the revolt against the tyranny of likability in popular culture.”

Finally is Augustine (77), a film about a French neurologist and his patient. Scott: “Everything depends on the subtlety of the direction and the charisma of the performances. “Augustine” is intellectually satisfying partly because it communicates its ideas at the level of feeling, through the uncanny power of Soko’s face and body. A well-known French pop singer, she is as grave and luminous as a silent-film star.”

Review: The Great Gatsby

F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel, The Great Gatsby, published in 1925 to ho-hum reviews, has come over the years to be considered one of the handful of great American novels. Therefore, there’s a certain ring of protection around it that’s been set up by English professors and their ilk to keep it from harm’s way, mostly in film adaptations. There have been six, none of them very good, and the latest, by Baz Luhrmann, continues that streak.

Lurhmann, who is to filmmaking as Gallagher is to comedy, has thrown everything at the screen in his adaptation. He is really one of the worst choices for this material (Michael Bay might be worse–we’d get an explosion then), as the book, only 169 pages of carefully constructed prose, requires someone who is steeped in subtlety, a word Luhrmann doesn’t understand. I can appreciate his attempt–he clearly admires the book, but in his hands it becomes a bombastic and boring spectacle. He may know the words, but he doesn’t know the music.

Speaking of music, I’m one who usually doesn’t care for anachronistic music, and it bristles here. This story is about a particular time–1922, the Jazz Age. There’s not that much jazz in it. We do get Andre 3000, but this is not a story that necessarily works as a cautionary tale about our own time. How about making a movie about these characters in their own time, with her own music? Even when Luhrmann tries to be accurate, he missteps. Rhapsody in Blue, by George Gershwin, heard prominently here, wasn’t composed until two years after the events of the film.

For those who are unfamiliar with the story, it is narrated by Nick Carraway (Tobey Maguire) a fellow on the brink of 30 who has moved to New York from the Midwest to become a bond salesman. He rents a house on a shore dotted with mansions in the fictional West Egg, New York (a stand-in for Great Neck). He eventually meets his mysterious neighbor, Jay Gatsby (Leonard DiCaprio), a vital man who seems to have the perfect life. When Gatsby realizes that Carraway’s cousin is Daisy Buchanan (Carey Mulligan), who lives with her husband in old-money East Egg, just across the bay, he asks Carraway to get them together. It seems that the two were in love five years ago, but were interrupted by World War I.

Daisy’s husband, Tom, a former polo star who is now an angry racist, decides to look into his past, especially his relationship with a “gambler” modeled on Arnold Rothstein. Tom is having an affair with the white trash wife of a garage owner in the Valley of Ash, a destitute patch of ground between the green mansions of Long Island and the bustle of New York City. All things will come to a head, and tragedy ensues.

The novel is about a great many things, primarily about the uncanny ability of Americans to reinvent themselves. Gatsby, who comes from a poor farm in North Dakota, has managed to change himself into millionaire and man about town. The book is also about the struggle between the Midwest, where Fitzgerald came from, and the east of New York. But Luhrmann has boiled it down to a romance between Gatsby and Daisy–”It was all for her,” Carraway says late. While Luhrmann’s script gives lip service to the other themes, he does the book a disservice in the telling.

But what about those who don’t care about the book, and have never read it? I saw a lot of teenage girls in the audience, presumably drawn by DiCaprio. What must they have thought of it? Even if I had been taken to my seat from an alien spacecraft, and had no knowledge of the book, I would thought this to be an unpleasant experience. I’ll steal from another critic who says the movie is “spectacle without soul.” It’s brash, loud, garish (I can only imagine how in-your-face it is in 3D) and often quite boring. The party scenes, which Luhrmann must have imagined first, seem inauthentic and an excuse for Luhrmann’s tendency to show off.

There are some good things about the film. The production design is good, especially the way they have used the oculist billboard, which Fitzgerald wrote into the story after seeing the cover design. I also liked most of the acting. Maguire has a difficult part, but he handles it with aplomb, even though Luhrmann makes a major mistake in framing the story from Carraway’s stay in an asylum–not in the book. Luhrmann seems to think that Carraway was Fitzgerald, and assigns him his alcoholism and writing ability, but this is not true. Carraway was his own character, modeled on no one.

I also like DiCaprio. His introduction, when he smiles just as Carraway describes it, is almost breathtaking, and I never didn’t believe him in the part. I was also admiring of Joel Edgerton as Tom. However, as much as I like Carey Mulligan, I didn’t care for her here. Daisy is a tough character to figure out, but certainly she’s not as vapid as Mulligan plays her. When Mulligan, in pre-release interviews, compared Daisy to a Kardashian, I cringed. Sheesh! Must everything have a contemporary comparison? She’s not like a Kardashian, she’s Daisy Buchanan, who has existed for over eighty years.

I really wanted to like this movie, and was pulling for it early, but by the twenty-minute mark a part of me wanted to leave. Luhrmann makes movies for those with ADHD, and I am not that audience. When he does take a breath, and characters talk, the pacing is deadly, and there’s a lot of watch checking. I did like one thing Luhrmann did–when Gatsby meets Daisy for tea he brings a lot of flowers. A lot of flowers.

My grade for The Great Gatsby: D.

Opening in New York, May 10, 2013

The big opening this weekend is The Great Gatsby (55), yet another attempt to capture the beauty of one of America’s greatest novels in film. Our Joe Webb loved it. I saw it today and, suffice it to say, I disagree, and will post my review tomorrow. But then he loved Moulin Rouge! and I hated it. A.O. Scott was kinder than most critics: “The best way to enjoy Baz Luhrmann’s big and noisy new version of “The Great Gatsby” — and despite what you may have heard, it is an eminently enjoyable movie — is to put aside whatever literary agenda you are tempted to bring with you. I grant that this is not so easily done. F. Scott Fitzgerald’s slender, charming third novel has accumulated a heavier burden of cultural significance than it can easily bear.”

Also opening wide today is Peeples, (50) not directed by Tyler Perry but “presented” by him. It seems to be a black version of Meet the Parents, with the very likable Craig Robinson starring. Perhaps worth a rental. Andy Webster: “Revelations unfold predictably, but the subplots cohere and the assured pacing offers a stark contrast with the often disjointed tempos of Mr. Perry’s mosaics. And Ms. Chism, who also wrote the screenplay, avoids Mr. Perry’s judgmental, often severe brand of tough love, embracing instead a more benign stance of forgiveness and acceptance. You wonder what films she will create when she’s out from under his shadow.”

Some art house openings of note include Sarah Polley’s The Stories We Tell (92), a documentary about Polley’s mother, who died when Sarah was 11. Manohla Dargis: “Stories We Tell” is an affecting documentary tale about a mother and wife who ached in many of the familiar ways, but didn’t always follow the typical female playbook, which also gives her life the resonance of a mystery that’s too good to spoil here.”

Another prominent doc is Venus and Serena (65), about the championship tennis playing Williams sisters. Scott: “This means that tennis fans will find much to enjoy but very little that they haven’t already seen or heard. The story of how Venus and Serena changed tennis — pushed, coached and nurtured by their father, Richard, and their less talkative but no less determined mother, Oracene — is a remarkable chapter in the history of race and sports in America. The version told here is detailed but also superficial, since Ms. Baird’s and Ms. Major’s intentions and methods are more promotional than journalistic.”

I’ll close with What Richard Did (80), an Irish film that follows the repercussions of an act, I guess committed by Richard, that ripples through the community. Stephen Holden: “This brilliantly acted movie, a loose adaptation of Kevin Power’s book “Bad Day in Blackrock,” directed by Lenny Abrahamson from a screenplay by Malcolm Campbell, confronts the implications for both Richard and for the tightly knit community that reflexively protects one of its own. The film scrutinizes this affluent milieu with a nonjudgmental attitude that makes its impact all the more devastating. Everyone just wishes the situation would go away.”

Review: Iron Man 3

Sometimes it’s just about fun. Iron Man 3 isn’t a great film, but damn I had fun while watching it. It has some pretty good action, but mostly it has Robert Downey Jr. getting out of scrapes and making quip after quip. I watched with pure pleasure.

The film, directed by Shane Black, is really a James Bond film. We have the wealthy, brilliant, megalomaniacal villain, with an industrial lair for the finale; a secondary and tertiary villain, our hero bound as he listens to the villain’s plans, a femme fatale, lots of gadgets (though in this case Bond is his own Q), and the hero’s coolness under pressure, with a joke for every occasion.

Of course, James Bond never had a iron suit, but in this film Tony Stark, the billionaire behind the mask, is out of the suit much more than he’s in it. In fact, the suit is rendered almost superfluous, as, by my count, six different people in the course of the film wear one of them. At the end of the film there are so many of them, flown by Stark’s computer, Jarvis, that you wonder if a person even needs to be in one. These are the drones of the comic book world.

The film’s two villains: Adridge Kililan (Guy Pearce) who as a gawky and crippled young man gets dissed by Stark and then plots his revenge, in what seems to be an homage to The Incredibles, and the Mandarin, a quasi-Arab terrorist (Ben Kingsley) who is setting off bombs all over the country. Then there’s the guy with red eyes (James Badge Dale) and who’s hands get really hot.

Stark issues a challenge to the Mandarin and gets his house blown into the water. I do hope his homeowner’s insurance covers helicopter attacks. During this sequence Stark’s girlfriend (he’s monogamous now) Pepper Potts (Gwyneth Paltrow), dons the iron suit for a few moments, a bit of girl power, but then at the end of the film she’s trussed up a prisoner of the villain so nothing is really new.

The overall theme of the film seems to be Stark’s struggle with his own demons. He’s suffering PSTD after the events that occurred in The Avengers. Luckily, in this film, he only has to deal with people who can breathe fire and melt things at the touch. The hot-shot playboy also is forced to team up with a kid in rural Tennessee, and the sentiment is kept a minimum. I do find it interesting that Stark, at the end of the film, doesn’t reward the fatherless boy with companionship, but with things. A lot of comic book heroes, such as Batman, Professor X, The Fantastic Four, etc., are filthy rich, but none so ostentatiously so as Stark. He’s the hero for Wall Street.

But that’s all for the college class on comic book films. For the rabble, including me, are lots of funny lines, some great action scenes (my favorite was a terrific one involving Iron Man saving 13 people that have fallen from Air Force One while name-checking the old game Barrel of Monkeys). There is probably a bit too much here–Don Cheadle is back as Rhodes, this time wearing a red, white and blue iron suit and now called The Iron Patriot, and a bland white guy president that seems quaint in the era of Obama (although they do have Miguel Ferrer as Vice-President). The finale, with all of the iron man suits at once, is too busy, but I was kind of mesmerized by the all the sound and fury. It was like watching fireworks, and I was tempted to go “ooh, ahh.”

This was my favorite of the Iron Man film,s and it’s due mostly to Downey Jr., who just grabs hold of the film and doesn’t let go. When they cast him way back when it was an atypical move, and it’s turned out to be a master stroke. Downey Jr. clearly loves playing this character: when he says, “I am Iron Man” it comes directly from the actor. He’s just so much fun to watch.

My grade for Iron Man 3: B+

Opening in New York, May 3, 2013

There are 21 films opening in New York today. 21! This means that no one is allowed to say, “There’s nothing to see.”

The biggest opening of course is Iron Man 3 (62), which has already seen by half of the Chinese. From what I hear, they’ve doubled down on Tony Stark’s angst, while keeping a steady rate of explosions. Manohla Dargis: “Originality isn’t the point of a product like “Iron Man 3,” which, despite the needless addition of 3-D and negligible differences in quips, gadgets, villains and the type of stuff blown up, plays out much like the first two movies.” I still want to see it.

For those who live in New York, and disdain the comic book genre, which will never die out as long as these kind of dollars are made, there are a number of other choices. I would see The Iceman (61), which is not about George Gervin but instead a hit man, played by Michael Shannon, perhaps the most interesting and exciting American actor working in films today. With the right choices he could end up another Jack Nicholson, or at least another Christopher Walken.  Stephen Holden: “In “The Iceman” Michael Shannon’s mesmerizing portrayal of Richard Kuklinski, a notorious contract killer, has the paradoxical quality, peculiar to many great screen performances, of being unreadable and transparent.”

Earning a great review in the Times is What Maisie Knew (66), a modern-day adaptation of a Henry James novel about a child who is the subject of a custody battle. A.O. Scott: “What Maisie Knew” lays waste to the comforting dogma that children are naturally resilient, and that our casual, unthinking cruelty to them can be answered by guilty and belated displays of affection. It accomplishes this not by means of melodrama, but by a mixture of understatement and thriller-worthy suspense.”

From director Susanne Bier comes Love Is All You Need (58), with Pierce Brosnan and a woman who looks a lot like Gwyneth Paltrow. I think I’d rather shave my head with a cheese grater than watch this film, but it go a so-so review from Stephen Holden: “Despite the gorgeous sights and rollicking sounds of sunny Italy, a Scandinavian heaviness hangs over the film, with a screenplay by Ms. Bier’s frequent collaborator Anders Thomas Jensen, based on a story they developed. Occasionally it feels as if the buoyancy signaled by “That’s Amore” and the luscious cinematography were applied like whitewash to disguise a dour family drama.” Get that Nick? A Scandinavian heaviness.

Olivier Assayas’ new film, Something in the Air (83) is about the repercussions of the May 1968 protests in France. A.O. Scott: “Something in the Air” feels less like a middle-aged artist’s nostalgia than like an attempt to make a film about the past in the present tense. Its open-ended structure and melancholy atmosphere are reminiscent of post-’68 films like Robert Kramer’s brooding “Milestones” and Alain Tanner’s magnificent “Jonah Who Will Be 25 in the Year 2000,” still one of the truest, saddest films about the aftermath of a revolution that did not quite happen.”

And for those who can’t miss anything with Keanu Reeves is generation Um… (25), which seems to be the dog of the week. Stephen Holden: “What does it add up to? Um … I have no idea and don’t really care. Just because the characters waste their time doesn’t mean you should waste yours watching them circle the drain.”

There are a lot more films opening. 21 in total, remember? But it’s getting late and I think these are the most important and or ridiculous.

 

Random Thread for May 2013

Which one are you?

Review: Mud

Mud is Jeff Nichols’ third film, and while not as overpoweringly emotional as his last, Take Shelter, it is a compelling boys’ adventure, with themes of fathers and sons (both biological and not) and the heartbreak of love.

First, the title. Matthew McConaughey plays a man known only as Mud. He is a fugitive living on an island in the Mississippi River. I took two thing from this: one, the phrase “My name is mud” comes from the plight of Dr. Samuel Mudd, who set John Wilkes Booth’s broken leg (also a fugitive) and was imprisoned for it (the debate to his innocence or guilt is still vigorous). So McConaughey may seem to be playing a character who has all the odds set against him. Two, what is more common, other than water, around a river? Mud, of course, and the title character is someone who is not only from the river, he is of the river, almost elemental.

McConaughey is the title character but the eyes of the film belong to Ellis (Tye Sheridan), a 14-year-old boy who is the son of a fisherman in a houseboat right on the river. He and his buddy Neckbone (Jacob Lofland) explore the area like modern-day Huck Finns and Tom Sawyers (Nichols was inspired by the writing of Mark Twain) and go to the island to see a boat stuck in a tree. They then learn that McConaughey is living there, and while Neckbone is cautious, Ellis instantly bonds with the vagabond Mud. The boys then help get him food, and when they learn he is wanted by police they try to help him escape with his girlfriend, Juniper (Reese Witherspoon).

This is a boys’ adventure set in a time that is vanishing. Set and filmed in Arkansas, these boys don’t have cell phones or play video games. Ellis’ father (Ray McKinnon) is a vanishing breed, and one of the subplots is when Ellis’ mother (Sarah Paulson) wants to move into town the houseboat may be destroyed. Across the river lives an old coot (Sam Shepard) who wants to be left alone, but one can sense that his way of life is coming to an end.

But the overall arc of the picture is that love hurts. There are three parallel romances in this picture, and all will come to heartbreak. McKinnon tells Sheridan that you can’t trust women, but McConaughey disagrees, and we can see that the main reason the boy looks up to the fugitive is because they are both hopeless romantics. When asked why he is helping Mud, Ellis says, “Because he loves her.”

This isn’t a perfect movie. There is almost too much plot, and a scene involving Ellis in need seems right of an old Lassie script. But there are nuggets all through out, especially from the mouth of Neckbone, who is sort of comic relief. I love the way Nichols has the boys blurting out the questions we all want to ask, but with age comes discretion. I also found it funny that Mud has only two possessions he values: his gun, and his white shirt, which magically seems to stay white, even while living on an island in the middle of a river. Either he’s got a hidden stash of Oxyclean there, or Nichols is having a little fun.

My grade for Mud: B+

Opening in New York, April 26, 2013

The most exciting opening in these parts is Jeff Nichols’ Mud (77). Brian is a big Nichols fan, and Take Shelter was my favorite film of 2011.  Another in a series of Matthew McConaughey reclamation projects, A.O. Scott writes: “Mr. Nichols’s screenplay is perhaps a little too heavily plotted, especially toward the end, when everything comes together neatly and noisily, but he more than compensates with graceful rhythm, an unfussy eye for natural beauty and a sure sense of character and place. What might have been an earnest, oversensitive, stereotypically Sundance-y piece of regionalist misery is leavened by suspense and jolts of laughter.”

The big new opening in multiplexes is Michael Bay’s Pain and Gain (45). I hate Bay with the intensity of a thousand suns, though this is stripped down Bay, with no cities being destroyed. Scott writes: “What follows is two hours of sweat, blood and cheerful, nasty vulgarity, punctuated by voice-over ruminations about Jesus, physical fitness and the American dream, along with a few tactical visits to a strip club. It all leaves you pondering whether you have just seen a monumentally stupid movie or a brilliant movie about the nature and consequences of stupidity.”

Also opening wide is The Big Wedding (30), the kind of movie that is an instant turn-off to me, with lots of stars (Robert De Niro is back to slumming for a paycheck) and no wit. Stephen Holden writes: “To say that Justin Zackham’s farce “The Big Wedding” takes the low road doesn’t begin to do justice to the sheer awfulness of this star-stuffed, potty-mouthed fiasco directed by the screenwriter of “The Bucket List.” This is a movie in which the racket kicked up by various couples “boinking,” to use its favorite euphemism, is enough to wake up an entire city.”

One of the films nominated for an Oscar for Best Foreign Language, Norway’s Kon-Tiki (63) is the story of Thor Heyerdahl’s epic journey. It should be noted that the release here in the U.S. is in English; it was shot in both English and Norwegian. Manohla Dargis: “Directed by Joachim Roenning and Espen Sandberg, with a script by Petter Skavlan, “Kon-Tiki” is a stolidly old-fashioned and manly hair-in-the-wind entertainment of the sort that could have filled out the bottom of a studio double bill. The men are handsome, the sea is pretty and if the sharks look as rubbery as last week’s chicken, at least they add some drama — and buckets of sloshing blood and guts — to what otherwise proves a dull affair.”

There are also a host of small indies. I won’t mention them all, but the best reviewed is An Oversimplication of Her Beauty, (77) a film, directed by and starring Terence Nance, about a relationship between two African-Americans. Nicolas Rapold: “His patchwork scheme (incorporating an original short film titled “How Would U Feel?”) recalls hybrid creations in American avant-garde cinema (imitating watercolor, line drawing, collage), as well as the dreamily puddling creations of 1970s animation, with their spontaneous sense of cosmology.

Second-best reviewed is Graceland (74), a Filipino film that would seem to have nothing to do with Elvis. Jeannette Catsoulis: “Yet even while embracing the breathless beats of the crime thriller, “Graceland” holds tight to its concern for exploited children. Endangered innocence is everywhere — sometimes portrayed in appropriately uncomfortable ways — and the cinematographer Sung Rae Cho deserves enormous credit for emphasizing vulnerability over titillation.”

Rahmin Barani, the director of the excellent Goodbye, Solo, returns with At Any Price (65), starring Dennis Quaid, a film about the murky world of agribusiness. Stephen Holden: “On one level “At Any Price” is a critical exploration of agribusiness and its cutthroat, hypercompetitive ways. On a deeper level it is a searching, somewhat ham-handed allegory of American hubris in the 21st century and a bleak assessment of the country’s wobbly moral compass.”

At Film Forum this weekend is Safety Last, starring the great silent film clown Harold Lloyd. It’s best known for the sequence that has Lloyd climbing the outside of a building, and is the source of one of the most recognizable stills in silent film history.

Review: The Place Beyond the Pines

The Place Beyond the Pines, co-written and directed by Derek Cianfrance, is an ambitious if flawed film that manages to be the definitive film about Schenectady, New York (the title is the Mohawk translation of the name of the city) and a reminder of the old saying, “The sins of the father are visited upon the son.”

I say that with some trepidation, because discussing the plot is difficult without spoiling the hell out of it. I’ll give it a try, but be wary.

The film consists of three distinct acts, but are connected. It reminded me of a common thing in literature now–the book of short stories that share characters. The first act is about Ryan Gosling as a motorcyclist who does stunts for a traveling carnival. When he’s back in Schenectady, he runs into an old girlfriend (Eva Mendes) and learns that she has had his son. He quits the carnival to stay nearby, and gets a job with a shady mechanic (a wonderful Ben Mendelsohn). This mechanic suggests a solution to Gosling’s money woes would be robbing banks. Gosling finally agrees, and gets hooked on it, but we all know this won’t end well.

The second act concerns police corruption, a kind of suburban Serpico. Bradley Cooper is a laywer who has idealistically joined the police force, and becomes a public hero. But he finds that the cops who befriend him are dirty, all the way up to the chief of police. Cooper struggles with what to do, and consults his father (Harris Yulin), a judge.

The third act concerns two teenagers fifteen years later after the first two acts. They are the sons of Gosling and Cooper, but don’t know the past connection. Cooper’s son is an absolute zilch, even though he has grown up in wealth. Gosling’s son (a very good Dane DeHaan) tries to find out about his father, and we can feel the building tragedy.

There’s a lot to like here, and it’s definitely worth seeing, with some caveats: this is a depressing film, keeping with Cianfrance’s previous film, Blue Valentine (but it’s much better than that film). There’s little in the way of levity here, and one can’t help that the use of Schenectady is kind of back-handed compliment (I believe it was shot there), since the place is so important to the story that it feels as if Cianfrance is condemning the place. Or at least the kind of city it is–a once thriving industrial city, now rusting away.

Also, though the three acts are connected by characters, I just didn’t feel the connection until the third act. Maybe that was Cianfrance’s bit of misdirection, but I don’t really want to be fooled in a movie like this. The swerve that happens between Gosling and Cooper’s sections is dizzying, and it’s a while before we can let the first go and focus on the second.

Gosling is not one of my favorite actors but he’s fine here–this is the kind of role that suits him. The very first shot of him is his six-pack abs, which may be his best acting feature. Cooper is excellent.

My grade for The Place Beyond the Pines: B.

Review: To the Wonder

There were a lot of viewers who had a “the emperor has no clothes” attitude about Terrence Malick’s last film, The Tree of Life. I disagreed. Malick has gone back to the well for his latest film, To the Wonder, and this time the emperor is buck naked.

Malick, as with The Tree of Life, has teamed with his cinematographer, Emmanuel Luzbecki, to create a poem of images, and To the Wonder is a beautiful film, with several striking images. But the narrative, if you could consider it a narrative, is almost nonexistent, and I was bored and counting the minutes until it was over.

The plot, such as it is, can be summed in this sentence from Wikipedia. The writer should be congratulated for their succinct prose: “A romantic drama centered on an American man who reconnects with a woman
from his hometown after his relationship with a European woman falls
apart. The European woman later returns, but finally leaves again.”

I can add a bit to this. The man is Ben Affleck, who appears to be a representation of some sort of masculine ideal. We hardly ever see his face–I can only remember a few closeups, one of which highlighted his regal chin. We don’t hear him talk much, either. He has a job–he’s some sort of chemist investigating a toxic dump’s effect on local citizens, but this is not amplified upon.

Most of the film is about Olga Kurylenko. She is a Russian living in Paris (I’m surmising on a lot of this–nothing is spelled out) who is in love with Affleck. They enjoy touring the city, and making a visit to Mont St. Michel, and this all looks like a perfume commercial. He asks her to come back to the U.S. with him, along with her ten-year-old daughter.

That turns out to be the wide-open spaces of a small town in Oklahoma. Neither Kurylenko or her daughter are thrilled to be there, and it’s kind of a loaded situation–who would like small-town Oklahoma after living in Paris? Kurylenko leaves, and and Affleck takes up with a local girl (perhaps a previous girlfriend) Rachel McAdams. Again, we get perfume-commercial scenes, this time in the dusty Oklahoma sites. But they have a fight, and she’s gone from the movie, completely.

Kurylenko comes back, sans daughter, and she and Affleck marry. There’s some confusion over whether she has a child or not–I think she does–but things don’t work out. She has an affair, and there’s a striking scene in which she leaves the chain motel with guilt written all over her face.

I should add that all through this there are scenes involving Javier Bardem as the parish priest of the town. I’m not quite sure what he’s doing there, and most of his lines are voiced over in Spanish (Kurylenko also has numerous voiceovers, in French) and seem to indicate he’s not happy with things in general. I can’t say much more, because it’s absolutely incomprehensible.

Malick seems to have targeted the topic of romance, but I have no idea what he means to say. This is a movie that could we watched with the sound off, and perhaps should be.

The acting is mostly the kind that has the actors staring out windows while the narration runs on the soundtrack. I wonder what kind of direction the actors got–were they told what they should be thinking, or were they merely contemplating the banal like what they will have for lunch. Malick is obviously enthralled with how Kurylenko looks, and I’m on board with that, but she doesn’t have the kind of presence that makes up for the little she has to do. What she does most is frolic–either in the streets of Paris or her big backyard in Oklahoma. I think this movie has more frolicking that any movie I’ve ever seen.

To the Wonder is also notable for being the last movie reviewed by Roger Ebert before his death. He was generous and gave it three-and-a-half stars, noting the lack of narrative and giving Malick credit for approaching it that way. Fair enough, but if you’re going to make a movie like this there has to be a reason for watching it other than its poetic images.

My review for To the Wonder: D+

Opening in New York, April 12, 2013

The biggest cultural event in New York this weekend is the opening of Matilda on Broadway–it got a rave from the Times. Movies? Not so much going on.

The major opening in wide release is 42 (63), the story of Jackie Robinson breaking the color line in baseball. This event can not be understated as a significant piece of the civil rights movement, and in American history overall. But the film seems to be getting “good, but could have been better” reviews, mostly because it’s a bit too hagiographical.

A. O. Scott writes: “Mr. Helgeland…has honorably sacrificed the chance to make a great movie in the interest of making one that is accessible and inspiring. Though not accurate in every particular, the movie mostly succeeds in respecting the facts of history and the personality of its hero, and in reminding audiences why he mattered.”

For cineastes, the big opening this week is Terrence Malick’s To the Wonder, (60) starring Ben Affleck, Olga Kurylenko, Rachel McAdams, and Javier Bardem (what an eclectic cast!)  He has made only six films, but sure knows how to build suspense for each one. This one is a romance. Scott writes: “To the Wonder” gestures toward the same kind of transcendence (as The Tree of Life) but falls short. This is partly because the human situation in the center of the film does not quite support its philosophical scaffolding and partly because the images, gorgeous as they are, do not in themselves possess the evocative power Mr. Malick intends them to have. He works in a shorthand that can sometimes feel facile rather than profound.”

Also in limited release is Disconnect (65), directed by Henry-Alex Rubin, with Jason Bateman and Hope Davis. It’s one of those omnibus movies, like Crash, Babel, and Short Cuts. Stephen Holden writes: “How the movie, directed by Henry-Alex Rubin (the documentary “Murderball”) from a screenplay by Andrew Stern, will be received probably depends on the age and digital sophistication of the viewer. Those proficient with Facebook, Twitter, Skype, webcams and smartphones may find “Disconnect” too obvious and blithely dismiss its alarmist attitude as fuddy-duddy.”

From the great British miserabilist, Ken Loach, comes The Angel’s Share (68), which is a comedy about the whisky trade. Holden writes: “Before it turns lighter and fizzier, “The Angels’ Share” offers a pungently realistic portrait of hopelessness and frustration, which explode in vicious street fighting and petty crime. It is difficult to transcend this world, where any attempts at upward mobility are likely to be thwarted by bitterly angry peers determined to make sure no one escapes.”

Finally, Scary Movie 5 (16) was wisely not screened for critics. I’m sure there are no surprises here, even the cameos by Charlie Sheen and Lindsay Lohan. I found this critique by a commenter on Metacritic to be insightful as to the target audience: “First of all I thought the movie was going to be lame but i really enjoyed it. It’s better than scary movie 2 but not as good as scary movie 3 or 1.” There you have it.

Opening in New York, April 5, 2013

I’m going to steal a bit of Nick’s innovations, but not all (no graphics, sorry). I’ll give a quote from a New York Times critic.

The most significant openings this week are limited releases, starting with Trance (61). Danny Boyle has had two best Oscar Best Picture nominees in a row, which makes him a director of some note, but I would think his streak ends here, with this thriller about hypnosis and stolen art. I’ll probably end up checking it out, if only for a full monty from Rosario Dawson (it was pointed out on this blog the likely reason for her getting the part).

Manohla Dargis writes: “there are times when it feels as if he’s throwing everything at the screen — the throbbing music, bleeding fingers, narrative U-turns and the startling sight of a naked Ms. Dawson striding toward the camera as strategically shorn as a Renaissance nude — less because he wants to distract you from the big reveal than to obscure the material’s thinness.”

Another Oscar-winning director has a film this week, his first in quite a while. Robert Redford directs and stars in The Company You Keep (56), about radicals from the ’60s hunted by the FBI. It has a good cast, co-starring Susan Sarandon and Julie Christie, but unfortunately also stars Shia LaBoeuf.

Stephen Holden writes: “Lem Dobbs’s clunky screenplay, adapted from Neil Gordon’s novel, maintains a scrupulously ethical balance in contemplating domestic terrorism, and the film gives the angriest of these left-wing radicals their say. If their rage has moderated, their basic feelings haven’t changed.”

Also in limited release are Upstream Color (78), directed by and starring Shane Carruth, which seems to defy description. Dargis writes: “In terms of the story, he also is a worm-wrangler cum kidnapper, referred to only as Thief, who, right out of a David Lynch nightmare, snatches a blonde, Kris (Amy Seimetz), one dark, stormy night and pumps worms down her throat. He never explains his actions, even after he takes Kris back to her house, where a copy of “Walden” waits for someone to enjoy.”

The Brass Teapot (39) is a Twilight Zone-like story, directed by Ramaa Mosley. It stars Juno Temple, who is a favorite of the Mr. Skin crowd. Nicolas Rapold writes: “A comic fable that squanders its twisted-fairy-tale concept, “The Brass Teapot” observes the insidious effects of greed on a young, broke couple. When Alice (Juno Temple) and John (Michael Angarano) acquire a teapot that spits out cash every time they hurt themselves, they leap into the good life through self-inflicted hard knocks but learn a valuable lesson when other people want their stuff.”

The only openings in wider release are a couple of horror films, which means I’ll be staying home this weekend.

6 Souls (27) is by a couple of Swedish directors and somehow stars Julianne Moore (certainly a TV series is next for her).  Rapold writes: “Beginning as a psychiatric freak show, “6 Souls” eventually trades serial-killer intimations for backwoods bad mojo before becoming just another dimly lighted pop-up-stalker flick.”

I suppose the weekend’s box office champion will be Evil Dead (58), a remake of the Sam Raimi film (I have not seen either of them–I understand Evil Dead 2 is something of a cult classic). Horror aficionados are giving this high marks, but I will wait and rent it, if only for the presence of Jane Levy, who activates my dirty old man meter.

Dargis writes: “The new “Evil Dead” has none of the first movie’s handmade charm or hilarity, intentional or otherwise. (It also lost its “The.”) The director, Fede Alvarez, approaches the creaky material with a surprisingly straight face and a fair amount of throat clearing.”