Married Manhattanites Kate (Catherine Keener) and Alex (Oliver Platt), parents to teenage daughter Abby (Sarah Steele), operate a successful secondhand furniture store shrewdly stocked with trendy estate sale items. Planning for the future, they purchase the apartment next door in order to expand their two bedroom apartment. Their only problem is the cranky old lady, Andra (Ann Morgan Guilbert), living in it by herself, and the fact that they’ve got to wait for her to die.
Andra is mostly cared for by one granddaughter, Rebecca (Rebecca Hall, above left), a sweet-natured radiology technician, and scorned by her other granddaughter, Mary (Amanda Peet, above right), a callous and self-centered spa clinician nonetheless thrown for a loop by the fact that her last boyfriend dumped her. Things become complicated when these two families’ lives intersect, resulting in a dramedy that’s billed as being about love, death and liberal guilt.
The simple, brilliantly calculated shock of an opening montage of mammograms gives way to interactions that are of a piece with writer-director Nicole Holofcener’s three other films — talky, urbane ensemble flicks that pry quiet but deeply sincere smiles and laughs from an audience, and just as often showcase hushed moments of pinprick vulnerability. Holofcener’s touch with actors is so superb, and her ear for smartly calibrated revelatory dialogue generally so acute, that one feels like they could trip along forever with these characters. Kate’s emotional frailty (she gives charitably to homeless people and wants to volunteer, but is overwhelmed with sadness on the occasions she does reach out) is deftly contrasted with Andra’s deteriorating physical condition.
The only false notes — small qualms, really — come when Holofcener tries to nakedly advance the plot, or color in tragic backstory. These bits feel forced, like some sizzle added to sell the steak. Otherwise, though, Please Give is a wry, absorbing and beautifully observed snapshot of free-floating malaise and burgeoning hope. In gazing both outward and inward in equal measure, it encourages, in nudging fashion, more human engagement and connection, which is always a good thing. (Sony Pictures Classics, R, 90 minutes)
Alvin, Simon and Theodore deal with the pressures of high school and fluctuations in popularity in this modest, agreeably family-friendly upgrade over the singing-and-dancing chipmunks’ muddled franchise debut. Featuring CGI critters who interact raucously with their live-action human custodians, this movie, akin to bouncy family adventures like the Stuart Little and Garfield franchises before it, heartily aims itself at and mostly successfully connects with a pre-teen demographic.
After Alvin’s overly demonstrative onstage antics land Dave Seville (Jason Lee) in a Parisian hospital, his videogame junkie cousin Toby (Zachary Levi) becomes the chipmunks’ bumbling, reluctant caretaker. Despite the fact that they’re pop music sensations, it is decided that the creatures should go to school. Toby enrolls them at his alma mater, where their principal, Dr. Rubin (Wendie Malick), nurses a peppy crush on them, even as their popularity is threatened by a group of jock bullies.
A trio of female chipmunks looking to become singers airmail themselves to the chipmunks’ disgraced former agent, Ian Hawke (David Cross), meanwhile. Sensing a way to get back into the music industry and strike back at his former charges all at once, Ian misrepresents himself to Brittany, Eleanor and Jeanette — who perfectly mirror Alvin and his fraternal counterparts, one being brash, one brainy, one short and chubby — and stokes their competitive instincts.
It’s hard to swallow some of the narrative plot points here, like the fact that hugely popular entertainers — which the chipmunks are supposed to be — could be instantaneously humbled by a couple doofus teenagers. Small swatches of dialogue, too (most notably including pointlessly empty movie references by Alvin to Apocalypse Now, Taxi Driver and The Silence of the Lambs), come across as awkward attempts at hipster posturing. Forgetting for a moment how he would even know about them, would Alvin be saying these things because he thought they were funny? And would modern teens even find them at all amusing?
The chief difference between this movie and its predecessor is the former’s unfussy confidence, though. Whereas the first film was full of pat set-ups and unimaginative staging, director Betty Thomas provides the brightly colored sequel with more zip and focus. Chase sequences or other action scenes are shorter, and more tightly choreographed. She’s aided, too, by a story that takes aim at low-hanging fruit. Pared down and mostly stripped free of clumsy attempts at exposition and emotional string-pulling, this sequel presents a story with a simple end point: a $25,000 competition to save a high school’s music program, and possibly restore the chipmunks’ luster. While it’s laughably simplistic, it also helps keep the movie on track.
Lee, the star of the first film, pops up only intermittently, and mostly via telephone calls. Levi gives a broad performance, proving an ineffectual replacement in an admittedly underwritten role. Cross’ repeat turn as the smarmy, manically self-involved Ian is a real treat, though; his chatterbox conniving, as much as any of the effects work, informs the necessary suspension of disbelief this conceit requires. Even kids, after all, want an entertaining villain to root against.
Housed in a regular plastic Amaray case, Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel comes to DVD presented in 1.85:1 anamorphic widescreen, with an English language Dolby digital 5.1 surround sound audio track, and French and Spanish Dolby digital 2.0 stereo tracks, the latter two of which probably provide much amusement when one is high. Optional English SDH and Spanish subtitles are also included. Supplemental bonus features consist of a wide variety of behind-the-scenes material, including featurettes and music videos. There’s a 10-minute segment with self-promoting producer Ross Bagdasarian, Jr., whose namesake father created the Chipmunks, that gets into the history of the critters, from their 1968 song debut to an eventual animated primetime TV show. Voice talent Amy Poehler, Anna Faris and Christina Applegate sit for an eight-minute segment on the Chipettes, with producer Janice Karman providing backstory on her 1982 creation of the frisky female counterparts to the Chipmunks.
Nine minute of behind-the-scenes material finds cast members taking part in wearying, in-character interviews, in which they discuss what it’s like working with Alvin, Simon and Theodore, etcetera. This is immediately undercut, of course, by two three-minute tidbits — actually among the most interesting extra material — which get into the animation and interplay of CGI and live-action elements. Animation supervisor Chris Bailey, along with a couple propmasters, provide an overview of how the filmmakers plan and capture a “reference pass,” while a separate segment introduces the “stuffies,” or stuffed versions of chipmunks (often mounted on sticks) that the production uses to help gives actors a reference point for dialogue and reaction. Needless to say, this includes some amusing footage, particularly as it relates to a football scene.
Seven minutes of performance footage from the movie’s opening sequence, featuring Honor Society, is counterbalanced by nine minutes, billed as “music mania,” that focuses on the blowout finale, and includes the cast and producers’ thoughts on the musical segment. On the music video front, there are optional-sing-along versions of “Single Ladies (Put a Ring On It),” “We Are Family” and “Shake Your Groove Thing,” though the latter is prefaced with a disgusting belchy intro by Alvin. There are also versions of “You Really Got Me,” by Honor Society, and “The Song,” by Queensberry. To purchase the DVD via Amazon, click here. C+ (Movie) B (Disc)
Uma Thurman’s Motherhood takes a licking in the United Kingdom, grossing under $200 during its opening weekend run at a single theater, as detailed in The Guardian by Amelia Hill. Still, does anyone really think this is actually a lasting qualitative indictment, even on the glossiest surface? Epic face-plants like this are always the result, in significant terms, of distributor/exhibitor/producer behind-the-scenes drama. Not saying that’s totally why Uwe Boll’s Bloodrayne tanked, no, but it sure was a pain in the ass for me to find a theater in North Carolina (I was traveling at the time) that was screening the film for review.
For those interested, Luke Y. Thompson drops a response to Kevin Smith’s diatribe against film critics, unleashed on Twitter over the past 48 hours. And he makes some good points, namely regarding the validity of opinion, which is what armchair pundits always invoke when they want to get all Sarah Palin on folks and paint film critics as effete elitists. Also, he’s right — there is (and should be) a certain stigma or price paid for films/studios when they don’t screen a film for review. It’s no big deal in the grand scheme of things, I agree, and totally well within a studio/filmmaker’s rights to do this, but it’s also certainly fair game to write about that fact, and let savvy moviegoers know. If that informs their opinion of said product, so be it.
“I can still kick ass,” says Dolph Lundgren at the end of Command Performance, a big, dumb, sort of affably block-headed throwback to ’80s-style knuckledusters in which he plays a rock ‘n’ roll drummer caught up in a nasty hostage situation with some terrorists. With the much talked-about The Expendables looming on the horizon for Lundgren later next month — another action entry from resurgent multi-hyphenate Sylvester Stallone, co-starring Jet Li, Jason Statham and Mickey Rourke, among others — this mid-grade straight-to-video programmer is a reminder of the sort of meat-and-potatoes entertainment that Lundgren and fellow down-market action star Jean-Claude Van Damme served up so consistently more than two decades ago.
Lundgren plays Joe, a drummer and a former member of a biker gang. He and his band are about to make it big as the Moscow opening act for Venus (Melissa Ann Smith), America’s hottest pop star. Impending glory quickly turn into chaos, however, as an armed gang of political fanatics storm the arena, capturing the pop star and her even more important guests of honor — Russian President Dmitri Petrov (Hristo Shopov) and his two teenage daughters. With the death toll rising and the hostages’ lives on the line, it’s up to one non-plumbing Joe to come to their rescue and save the day.
Directed by Lundgren, and co-written with Steve Latshaw, Command Performance doesn’t boast the most stellar production design, nor does its execution leave one thunderstruck. Does it tick the boxes, though? Does Lundgren get to stab a guy in the head, you might wonder? Yes, yes he does. But what about play a riff on an electric guitar, and then smash the bejesus out of another baddie with said instrument? Why yes, he gets to do that too. Command Performance is a rather appropriate title for this flick, as it is the definition of playing to one’s base. The conflict is generic, and much of its dialogue purely functional, but there’s a streamlined, unfussy uniformity of purpose that, on a certain level, one has to appreciate. Well, if they happen to like copious amounts of emptied automatic weapon clips and springboard-powered stuntmen flying 10 feet up into air.
Housed in a regular plastic Amaray case, Command Performance comes to DVD divided into a dozen chapters, presented in 2.35:1 widescreen, with English language Dolby digital 5.1 surround sound and 2.0 stereo audio mixes, and optional English SDH and Spanish subtitles. Although the back cover touts an interview with Lundgren and and behind-the-scenes fight footage, there are actually no supplemental features, save complementary red-band and all-ages trailers for the movie, along with a trio of other First Look previews. Big thumbs down on the bait-and-switch, First Look. Still, to purchase the DVD via Amazon, click here. C- (Movie) D- (Disc)
A wild, hit-and-miss stab at high-concept comedy, Hot Tub Time Machine tells the story of four guys (John Cusack, Rob Corddry, Craig Robinson and Clark Duke)
who inexplicably wake up in 1986 after a night of debauchery at a ski lodge. The movie should find mostly welcome reception in younger audiences willing to submit to its slipstream rhythms, but most moviegoers will deeply feel at least some nagging lack of narrative underpinning and infrastructure, which crucially, and fatally, undercuts momentum and goodwill. For the full original review, from Screen International, click here. (MGM, R, 99 minutes)
A remake of the 2004 French movie Nathalie, and the first of his 13 feature films that Oscar-nominated director Atom Egoyan didn’t write, Chloe is a sleek and erotic drama that uses the familiar and often tawdrily presented plot points of sexual addiction, infidelity and betrayal to dig into the nuance and reasons surrounding the distance between men and women. It’s the rare arthouse, thinking person’s erotic thriller, in other words, and a fairly good one at that, if dinged by some late machinations.
Gynecologist Dr. Catherine Stewart (Julianne Moore) comes to suspect her husband, friendly and flirtatious college professor David (Liam Neeson), of having an affair, so when she comes across the mysterious title character (Amanda Seyfried), an alluring escort, she decides to hire her to test David’s fidelity. Meeting up regularly, Catherine then absorbs the increasingly explicit details Chloe shares regarding her encounters with David, which sting and hurt but also ignite long-dormant and far trickier sensations of surging desire.
Superbly acted and almost flawless in its scene-to-scene construction, Chloe is imbued early on with a woozy sense of mystery and intrigue, something underscored by Mychael Danna’s sumptuous score and Paul Sarossy’s equally lush and inviting cinematography. Despite its title, Moore is actually Chloe‘s anchor, and she gives a stirring performance of considerable depth and emotional insight, shining a light on the way flickering passion warps thinking.
Never mind the roots of its source material; on a macro-narrative level there are common threads to much of the rest of Egoyan’s work: differences between appearance and reality, complex characters who sometimes act against their own perceived best interests, and the subjective nature of truth. Adapted by Erin Cressida Wilson (Secretary), the film only stumbles a bit with some of its third act plotting, and in particular its ending, which seems nipped from a melodrama that, on a very fundamental level, just doesn’t match the rest of the movie. After delicately balancing the cerebral and corporeal for much of its running time, Chloe in the end yields to the baser instincts of what it’s generally believed that film audiences wish to see. It’s not the first time feeling has trumped thought, though, and it certainly won’t be the last, in cinema or in life. (Sony Pictures Classics, R, 96 minutes)
Hollywood films which unfold in some dystopian near-future run all sorts of risks, not the least of which is something largely beyond their measure of creative control — where they fall in the marketplace, in terms of how receptive the public is to both bleakness of tone and the specifics of their subject matter. A pleasant touch of kismet, then, that Repo Men hits theaters against the clamorous backdrop of the current health care reform debate. A competently pieced together dramatic thriller with flashes of action and streaks of mordant humor, Repo Men is a movie that won’t get the respect it deserves in part because of its genre trappings and easy-sell marketing campaign, but also because it expressly doesn’t waste time trying to court that respect. It’s facile with its colorful background strokes, breezy but effective with its characterizations and generally more thoughtful than it needs to be, and the overall result is a spry, fun film that also seems in some ways tailor-made for the current zeitgeist.
Remy (Jude Law) works as a repossession officer for The Union, a slick corporation which specializes in “artiforgs,” nano-technologically engineered replacement organs (lungs, heart, knee cartilage, you name it) that can be financed just like an automobile purchase (a free-marketer’s dream!), and of course then be contractually seized back in similar fashion if/when the recipient — sometimes powered by vanity, but frequently desperate and bereft of medical alternatives — cannot pay. This line of work is a point of contention between Remy and his wife Carol (Carice van Houten), with whom he shares a young son. Remy is good at what he does, and more or less a creature of leonine, unblinking, heart-hardened efficiency (he thinks nothing of holding a pair of bloody tweezersin his mouth as he works his gloved hand into a body cavity up to hiselbow), but Carol wants him to talk to his boss, Frank (Liev Schreiber), and arrange for a transfer to the more civilized realm of the sales department.
Jake (Forest Whitaker), however, Remy’s best friend since childhood and a barrel-chested, garrulous guy who takes a more naked delight in needling strangers on the street who are approaching their allotted payment cutoff dates, sees their shared work as exciting and fresh — a masculine competition loop from which he wants no exit, for either himself or his friend. Things change in an instant for Remy when, in a work-related accident, he’s rendered unconscious and outfitted with a transplant heart. In short order he’s both single — Carol leaves him when he doesn’t immediately take a desk job — and uncertain how to continue his work. Remy then finds himself approaching overdue status, but instead of looking for money or accepting Jake’s offers of help, he spends his last free-and-clear days playing savior to a junkie singer, Beth (Alice Braga), with multiple transplants — the result of a near-fatal auto accident. Together, the duo lives on the lam for a while, then take up a mission of self-preservation — to break into The Union’s corporate headquarters and erase their transplant accounts, thus clearing what they owe.
Repo Men is directed by Miguel Sapochnik, from a screenplay adapted from Eric Garcia’s novel The Repossession Mambo, and even if one didn’t have knowledge of this fact they would likely pick up on trace elements of its novelistic roots, since the movie evinces a smart, realistic depth of setting without having to resort to overwhelming special effects crammed into every frame. It’s also the rare futuristic movie that peddles drama or action but still isn’t afraid to have a sense of humor about itself. A big part of it is the jocular rapport that Law and Whitaker establish early on, certainly, but there’s a buoyancy to the proceedings, even as it progresses into darker territory.
The script massively drops the ball on one fundamental question — as a Union employee, it defies credulity that Remy would not be covered with an underwritten protective policy, especially while actually on the job. Even though much hinges on this plot pivot, there’s not even any real attempt at writing around it, which could have been achieved in cursory fashion with one scene, or just a small handful of dialogue exchanges. Bridging the gap of this suspension of disbelief is undeniably Repo Men‘s greatest shortcoming.
Otherwise, however, the screenplay and story are characterized by a pleasant unpredictability that is informed by realistic motivations: Remy is a lunch-pail kind of guy jerked rudely awake, which sudden health concerns can certainly do. The movie’s action, too, is a nicely presented mix — the penultimate corporate siege sequence is a nice mash-up of THX 1138, Oldboy and some David Cronenberg wet dream — blending together balletic modernism, queasy absurdism and good, old-fashioned knuckle-dusting. There’s plenty of exaggeration here, but also enough exposed-nerve truth to make Repo Men one part discomfiting to every two parts entertaining. One hopes this isn’t the future of health care in America. Insert nervous laughter here… (Universal, R, 111 minutes)
I have a bone to pick with studio marketing guys — if you’re making a romantic comedy and the best you can come up with is just putting your two stars on the poster kinda smiling and looking flirty, you probably really don’t have anything new in the genre, so why are even you making it? I mean other than the easy dollar? The latest example of the above phenomenon is The Back-up Plan with Jennifer Lopez and that CBS guy. Amy Adams had it with her Leap Year poster (at least it was green) but c’mon people — design something. Sell me on your idea. Sell me the high concept reason for your movie to be, give me something that makes me think this is gonna break out of the pack and be something worth seeing rather than just something to occupy 98 minutes and hopefully help me score, ya know?
I realize these things trend feminine, and that that is the basic mission statement — to appeal to girls, who will drag along the guy, to put his ass in the seat next to them. But the rom-com poster is by far the easiest poster genre to spoof. I’d been thinking about this as it relates to She’s Out of My League and a couple other films on the horizon, the former of which made a late attempt at mitigating Jay Baruchel’s wincing mug and all those complementary posters of dudes by adding the lovely Krysten Ritter to the promotional poster campaign. But it’s always sappy rom-com mock-ups that first get titters in movies about movies, before action poster spoofs, really. Because they so roundly evidence a complete lack of effort.
It seems hard to believe that there exists a movie with Jason Mewes, Scottie Pippen, Gary Coleman and Ron Jeremy, but that’s just what competitive mockumentary Midgets vs. Mascots is. Self-billed as a cross between Jackass and Borat, director Ron Carlson’s movie pits five little people against five costumed mascots, battling for a $1 million payday in more than two dozen competitions, like drinking a gallon milk the fastest, alligator wrestling and seeing how few insults it takes to get punched in a bar.
And yes, as it sounds, Midgets vs. Mascots is pretty much an undiluted raunch-and-yuk-fest, designed to strike the basest chords of huh-huh amusement with the 18-34-year-old male demographic at which the film is… well, pitched is perhaps too active a word. Lobbed, let’s say. Or for whom the movie is set on a tee? In fact, accompanying press release material touts that in test screenings, the Midgets vs. Mascots‘ scores came back “20 percent higher than the average studio comedy,” and in head-to-head comparative testing it also bested what were deemed seven of 10 “relevant comedies,” including Jackass, Reno 911, Napoleon Dynamite, Bad Santa, Pineapple Express, Clerks and Harold & Kumar Go To White Castle. Not sure about how that air-quote science necessarily holds up in real-world conditions, but with unsuspecting bystanders providing realistically baffled reactions when the contestants crash small-fry restaurants, bars and suburban neighborhoods during outrageous
competitions, this guerilla-style title is likely to at least find welcome reception amongst inebriated frat house party audiences, which I suppose says something about fulfilling its reason for being.
Housed in a regular plastic Amaray case, Midgets vs. Mascots comes to DVD presented in 1.78:1 anamorphic widescreen, with an English language Dolby digital 5.1 surround sound audio track and optional English and Spanish subtitles. Bonus materials include a clutch of deleted scenes, character featurettes and previews for other First Look Studios straight-to-video titles. To purchase the DVD via Amazon, click here. D+ (Movie) C+ (Disc)
So Viacom hired 18 different marketing agencies to secretly upload clips of its own properties to YouTube, in order to bolster its eventual case for litigation against the site, and purchasing owner Google, according to a piece from The Wrap’s Dylan Stableford? Shocking! By which I mean not at all. After all, this is how entertainment conglomerates play, no? Rough and dirty and under the table — never content to admit they missed the boat or got passed by on some technological advance, but instead get a piece of whatever new pie is out there, no matter how they have to fudge the facts. It’s all white-collar criminal engineering, I realize, but I’d pay to see a movie about this sort of cloak-and-dagger shenanigans. Well, if at least one lawyer got punched in the balls.
I was going to post something on the Don McKay trailer, but… yep, the moment’s passed. Intriguing (to-scale) cast, perhaps a couple too many reveals, but a nice end point. Wait… does this qualify?
Like fellow Tegn import In the Sign of the Virgin, 1974’s In the Sign of the Taurus blends good-natured, silicone-free sexuality with a rib-nudging story that puts moral hypocrisy in its cross hairs and amusingly advocates for personal freedom, sexual and otherwise. Written and directed by Werner Hedman, the film tells the tale of a small Danish town whose way of life is apparently sustained by the lavish tax payments of single benefactor. When he dies, it’s revealed that his will stipulates in order for the town to receive the bulk of his estate, a child must be born out of wedlock in, yes, the sign of Taurus. Both debauchery and political talking out of the sides of one’s mouth ensue.
A whole slate of these astrologically-tinged films were produced in Denmark in the 1970s, and while they don’t overwhelm with originality of plotting (they basically all offer up noodling variations on the issue of sexual repression versus a healthy embrace of libidinal pleasure), their production value, ribald energy and airy sense of streamlined purpose go a long way toward making them enjoyable genre entries, easy to be appreciated for what they are. While it’s true there is a pinch of hardcore action (far less than even 20 or 30 seconds worth, I’d say), this film and the rest of its brethren are softcore skin flicks at heart — goofy, grounded movies where the narrative actually drives all the sexual acting out.
And, like other entrants in the series, In the Sign of the Taurus puts its strength in its female characters, here most embodied in the form of brothel owner Carola (Lone Helmer), who expresses no small amount of bemusement at seeing her burgh’s moral beacons, with whom she’s already very familiar, tripping over themselves to “take one for the town.” Anne Bie Warburg, Kate Mundt, Bent Warburg and Ole Soltoft also appear.
Housed in a regular plastic Amaray case with a sapphic, screen-captured cover that certainly (if less than crisply) sells the salacious nature of the material, In the Sign of the Taurus comes to DVD on a region-free disc in 1.78:1 anamorphic widescreen, with a native language Dolby digital soundtrack, removable English subtitles, and an animated top menu screen with additionally animated dozen chapter selections. The video transfer is remarkably free from grain, other debris, or any edge enhancement, but there are of course some minor issues with color consistency; while flesh tones look healthy and the focus details are solid, saturation tends to ebb and flow a bit. The only bonus feature, alas, is a two-and-a-half-minute image gallery slide show of stills from the movie — some of which are behind-the-scenes material, but most of which are not. If the effort were made, one would think some of the players would be available and interested in talking for some sort of retrospective overview. To purchase the DVD via Amazon, click here. C+ (Movie) C- (Disc)
The violations and indignities that the written word suffers in Hollywood are many and sundry, but screenwriters get their say in Tales from the Script, a highly interesting documentary built around wide-ranging conversations with 46 big screen storytellers, from John Carpenter and Frank Darabont to Bruce Joel Rubin and William Goldman. Eschewing voiceover narration or some artificially manufactured chronological narrative structure, the movie instead more or less embraces chaos theory, loosely grouping its anecdotal insights with title cards.
Yes, Tales from the Script is exclusively a talking-head affair, which lends it the feel of a cultured curio — a selling point, to be sure, for cineastes, but something of a hurdle for general audiences. (There’s also a hefty companion book to the film, underscoring a certain academic worth.) A lot of the observations herein are pointed but somewhat generic. Steven de Souza (above) amusingly and perceptively notes that there are people in the room during a story meeting who basically “make their day,” work-wise, by offering comment on your script, so such an environment encourages even dumb, from-the-hip remarks over more thoughtful silence.
Some stories, however, are pure, unadulterated gold, like Guinevere Turner hilariously recounting her work experience with director Uwe Boll on BloodRayne, Darabont talking about being offered a $30 million budget for shooting The Mist with a different ending, and Rubin ruefully recalling a Disney executive taking him to lunch and surreptitiously picking his brain for ideas for Armageddon by just letting Rubin talk about his work on Deep Impact. Director Peter Hanson and co-producer/co-writer Paul Robert Herman are also smart enough to include in the mix a number of writers laboring chiefly in the straight-to-video realm, which keeps Tales from the Script grounded in reality, providing an accurate, unblinking look of the balancing act between art and commerce that is screenwriting, and moviemaking in general. (First Run, unrated, 105 minutes)
The usual framing perspective of drugs and sex and rock ‘n’ roll tales gets a kick in the pants with The Runaways, a boozy, pungent, femme-centric coming-of-age flick that chiefly connects courtesy of a nervy, burgeoning adult performance by Kristen Stewart, and a smart, economical sense of period style.
Written and directed by Floria Sigismondi, the music-fueled film is a nervy, nervous piece of celluloid-captured acting out — a flick for fans of Garage Days, Lords of Dogtown, SLC Punk! and
Almost Famous, peddling the true story of the groundbreaking, all-girl 1970s rock band of the same name. Set in Los Angeles, it revolves mostly around two valley-girl teenage misfits, paint-huffing guitarist Joan Jett (Stewart, above left) and recruited lead singer/sex kitten Cherie Currie (Dakota Fanning), who bloom under the Svengali-like influence of outlandish impresario Kim Fowley (Revolutionary Road‘s Oscar-nominated Michael Shannon). With their tough-chick image and punchy, unvarnished talent, the band quickly earns a name for itself, touring Japan and touching off a sensation among young girls there before backbiting and Behind the Music-style flameout predictably ensues.
Some of the snapshot excess here seems designed or included chiefly for effect (who takes a phone call while having sex on an ironing board, for instance?), and the nature of the movie’s source material (it’s based on a book by Curie) additionally becomes something of a problem, in that the film never fully takes shape as either a true ensemble piece (two members of the Runaways, including Alia Shawkat, above right, have literally almost no lines) or something more explicitly through the eyes of Curie. Since the latter flamed out (and became a “chainsaw artist,” the end credits tell us) and Jett went on to a successful solo career, there’s a lingering disparity that hangs over the film. Narratively, it feels miscalibrated in small but significant ways, never truly getting at the heart of Curie and Jett’s relationship, but instead just flitting around its boundaries in mock-provocative ways, like a much-discussed kissing scene between the two actresses. Style and energy go a long way, though, and The Runaways has at least those elements in abundance. (Apparition, R, 102 minutes)
Not explicitly film-related, per se, but Joystiq is reporting — complete with a leaked inter-office memo from IGN president Roy Bahat that describes part of the company’s core mission as “serving advertisers looking to reach men” — that entertainment site IGN is laying off staffers across all its divisions, despite a 40 percent growth in audience over the last year. Bad news for some good people, and good news, unfortunately, for some bad people… or at least undeserving people.
A wilderness-survival tale loosely in the vein of Jacob Aaron Estes’ Independent Spirit Award-minted Mean Creek, Surviving Crooked Lake illustrates the downside of body wrangling that Weekend at Bernie’s never showed. An earnestly pitched tale that played the Slamdance Festival a couple years back, the movie features some decently grounded if not star-making adolescent performances, as well as a pleasantly hazy visual scheme that uses its natural surroundings as a more compelling backdrop than many like-minded great-outdoors dramas, which trade in a prodding and peculiarly modern fear of the unknown. Eventually, however, hackneyed story choices overwhelm the film, which devolves into a lather-rinse-and-repeat cycle of arguments, river-rowing and wandering about.
Co-written and directed, in unusual collaborative fashion, by Sascha Drews, Ezra Krybus and Matthew Miller, Surviving Crooked Lake centers around a quartet of 14-year-old teenage girls who take a canoe trip as part of their summer camp experience. Reticent Steph (Stephannie Richardson) is the focal point, and occasional narrator herein, while Morgan (Morgan McCunn) is most in bloom. Also along for the ride are Alysha (Alysha Aubin) and Candice (Candice Mausner). Steph is sill traumatized by her dad’s recent death, and afraid of the water, so her older brother Jonah (Guy Yarkoni), a camp counselor, convinces her to go along by volunteering as the group’s chaperone and promising to look out for her. He does, until an unfortunate accident befalls him — after an abortive make-out session with Morgan — leaving the girls to make some tough decisions about what to do with his body as they try to navigate their way back to civilization.
There are grace notes of the same sorts of themes — grief, loneliness and misplaced attraction — plumbed in something like 12 & Holding, another snapshot of cusp-of-pubescence turmoil, but the nitty-gritty of dramatic conflict and the acting here are not up to snuff, quite simply. The girls are good at reacting, and conveying the easy rapport of adolescent friendship. But once things get “heavy,” as it were, their difficulties in believably emoting ramp up and poke through.
There’s also a major problem with suspension of disbelief; it defies credulity that, absent some clever write-around to explain matters, Jonah alone would be granted custody of the four girls, or that they would take two canoes, leaving three girls alone in one vessel and he and one of the girls in the other. Some clear, easy explanations in the set-up could have helped circumvent these problems, along with questions about maps and other matters that later come into play. As is, the movie basically just plays out a string, consisting of arguments over whether or not to dump/bury Jonah’s body, battles with nature (rapids, a lingering wolf), and then more arguments over maps and direction, since apparently none of the girls can remember that the sun rises in the east and sets in the west.
The film’s cinematography (co-credited to Drews and Krybus in press notes, though IMDb lists only the latter in this regard) is a big plus, all things considered, though there’s an impulsivity to the hand-held camerawork which sometimes works well and serves the story, and other times submarines its effectiveness. In the grand scheme of things, it’s not that Surviving Crooked Lake is all that bad, it’s just that there’s no memorable or original driving tension to the story. It merely happens, and then is done. (Neoclassics, unrated, 89 minutes)
I couldn’t sleep a couple nights ago, so I dug up a screener from the gi-normous “pleasure pile” instead of something more pressing, and fired up Late Night Shopping, an entirely enjoyable British import of chatty twentysomething angst from 2001. Good call, it was; product fit mood nicely.
Directed by Saul Metzstein, from a script by Jack Lothian, the film self-identifies on its cover box as “in the tradition of Slackers [sic] and Swingers,” which is a bit misleading. It’s loose-limbed, character-focused and dialogue-driven, sure, but also much more conventionally structured than the former film, from Richard Linklater. Its story centers around a quartet of loose, vagabond acquaintances drawn together by their night-shift occupations and sardonic dispositions. Phone bank operator Lenny (Enzo Cilenti) is haunted by a past spent penning steamy letters for a Penthouse Forum-type magazine, which has rendered him unable to connect to women, including the gal in his office on whom he has his eye. Consummate ladies man Vincent (James Lance) is on the prowl for anything with a vagina, and operates on a strict, three-encounters-only policy of rationed coitus. The gal of the bunch, acerbic Jody (Kate Ashfield), hates her techo-manufacturing job most of all. Hospital orderly Sean (Luke de Woolfson), meanwhile, is uncertain whether a fight with his live-in girlfriend, Madeline (Heike Makatsch), has dissolved their relationship for good; since their schedules don’t align, he’s been examining the soap and sheets in an attempt to see if she’s still around.
Late Night Shopping grades out quite high on dialogue and character relatability, so the utter contrivance of a third act seaside escape/road trip — which pulls the movie out of its interesting, pop-gloomy twilight world — is only moderately irksome, all things considered. It’s meant to give the movie a rear-end slap of downhill momentum, this injected aspect of romantic “questing,” but in reality its shopworn conventionality bleeds the movie of a good bit of its rough-around-the-edges charm. Still, of special note is Lance’s performance — he gives good lothario, making Vincent both scummy and funny, thoughtful and thoughtless all at once.
Housed in a regular plastic Amaray case, Late Night Shopping comes presented in 1.78:1 widescreen, with an English language stereo audio track. In addition to liner notes by British film critic Jason Solomons and a feature-length audio commentary track with writer Lothian and director Metzstein, there’s the movie’s theatrical trailer, a single deleted scene and a couple of featurettes in which Lance and Cilenti showcase two respective bits of sleight-of-hand that their characters employ. To purchase the DVD via Amazon, click here. B (Movie) B (Disc)
Starring opposite George Clooney in Up in the Air was, at least at first, a nerve-wracking experience for Anna Kendrick. “Yes, let’s just say I was terrified,” she laughs. “Who wouldn’t be? I mean, come on, it’s George Clooney, and he’s one of the biggest stars in the world.” You’d never know that she suffered from a touch of nerves. On screen, the actress gives a remarkable performance as a self assured young career woman, Natalie Keener, who has to learn the ropes from an older, more experienced colleague, Ryan Bingham (Clooney).
Kendrick was recruited for Up in the Air by director Jason Reitman who was fresh off his Oscar-nominated triumph Juno, the bittersweet comedy about a pregnant teenager played by Ellen Page. In fact, says Reitman, Page and Kendrick have a similar approach. “I’d seen Anna in Rocket Science and was just blown away by her,” says the director. “I just think she has such a unique voice, similar to Ellen Page — just a voice of her own amongst a generation — and I needed somebody who can be witty and fast, and really sharp and go toe to toe with George Clooney, giving him shit the entire film. And there was no one that came close to Anna.”
In Up in the Air, as in Thank You For Smoking, Reitman delivers another acutely observed tale about a shark-ish businessman who spends most of his life in a self-created bubble of isolation — this time moving from one city to the next doing the undeniably unpleasant job of firing people. Bingham lives out of an impeccably packed suitcase, stays in stylish hotels, and clocks more frequent flier miles than a pilot. His life is as neatly packed as his luggage until the outside world — in the shape of two very different women — begin to make him think that he might just be ready to make a real connection.
Up in the Air filmed at four different airports in the United States, and the cast and crew were constantly on the move during production. “I don’t have a fear of flying,” says Kendrick. “But I don’t really care for air travel, probably for the same reasons that Natalie doesn’t. It’s that thing of being at the mercy of other people.”
Originally from Portland, Maine, Kendrick is now based in Los Angeles and is rapidly gaining a reputation as one of the brightest new female stars to emerge in recent years. She started acting professionally as a child and she became the second youngest Tony Award nominee ever when she was nominated as Best Featured Actress in a Musical for her performance as Dinah in the Broadway revival of High Society. “I danced when I was a little kid,” she says. “And sang all of the time, too, and I was just one of those kids that wanted to perform and wanted to be on stage. And when you’re six you just want to jump around and then when I was about 10 I still really wanted to do it, to sing and dance and I was lucky enough to have parents who treated me with an incredible amount of respect for a 10-year-old girl. They really listened to me — even when that 10-year-old was telling them that she really wanted to be on Broadway. They supported me and let me take a real run at it and I’ll be forever grateful to them.”
Her first feature film role came along when she was 16. Camp, fittingly enough, was a musical comedy about a group of youngsters at a performing arts camp. It provided the perfect cross over from theatre to film for Kendrick. Both the film and Kendrick went on to win huge acclaim at the Sundance Film Festival. “We shot the film at the camp, we were all sort of living there, and occasionally we would go in and shoot a scene. Actually, I think a lot of us thought that it would never see the light of day,” she laughs. “We were just a bunch of little hoodlums singing and dancing. It was so much fun.” A redacted question-and-answer chat follows:
Q: Is it fair to assume that the character you play is a long way from your own personality?
AK: (laughs). Oh yes! But that was the fun part about it. Natalie does so many things that I would like to do, and she is unapologetically who she is in a way that I wish I was. Sometimes there are things that you wish you would say or do and you think about it. And it was easy to transfer that into someone else. Personally, I generally avoid confrontation so it was a release to play Natalie because she’s not going to back away. And getting to yell at George Clooney was pretty cathartic.
Q: Have you met people like Natalie?
AK: I think we all have. She’s a little rigid and a little annoying and she has a strength that she’s not afraid of. But there’s also a weakness there — and actually you probably see her at her weakest in this film, it’s probably the most vulnerable time of her life. I imagined that she was the sort of person who prides herself on the idea that she’s overcome a lot of challenges in her life and I think that in reality this is the first time she’s ever been challenged.
AK: George is a really smart guy and a really sensitive guy and I’m sure he looked at me and knew that I was pretty terrified. I think you’d have to be insane not to be a little intimidated by him. And he’s aware of the effect that he can have on people but he does everything to make you feel at ease. He sort of encouraged a really playful relationship — a relationship where I could kind of give him crap and he could make fun of me and I’d give it right back to him. So that when it came to do time to do it on screen it seemed perfectly natural. Really, and I know everyone says this, George couldn’t be nicer. The thing is George makes it OK for you to relax and he makes so much effort to put everyone at ease. And it gets pretty easy after that. I really loved working with him.
Q: But you were terrified at first?
AK: Yes, let’s just say I was terrified. Who wouldn’t be? I mean, come on, it’s George and he’s one of the biggest stars in the world.
Q: Is Jason the kind of director who gives you a lot of time to prepare for a scene?
AK: Well we didn’t have any rehearsals at all, which was interesting, and certainly made certain things challenging, but at the same time, kept a lot of things really fresh. And he’s certainly very willing to talk about anything with you — he’s incredibly available. But he knows exactly what it is that he wants and just sort of tells you to give it to him that way, and you can try it your way, but you know that he knows what he’s doing and what he is going to want in the end. And so even if it doesn’t make perfect sense to you yet, you know that this is a guy that you should trust.
Q: Did you talk to Jason about the themes the film explores?
AK: Oh yes, I think it’s about isolation in the modern world. And it’s about these people who think that they have their life philosophy all figured out and it’s what it does to them when they realize that they haven’t. I just loved the script. Jason writes so beautifully and he’s so funny and yet it’s really quite poignant too, because you meet these people at a time when things are starting to unravel for them.
Q: You started acting at a very young age. But you don’t come from a family of actors, do you?
AK: No, my Mom was an accountant and my Dad was a teacher.
Q: Did you see a lot of Broadway shows yourself as a kid?
AK: You know, honestly, it wasn’t as though I went to New York and saw a Broadway show and thought that’s what I wanted to do. It was more of an idea — just the idea of being on stage in front of real theater fans.
Q: Did you get nervous appearing on stage as a child?
AK: No, it was just huge fun — I think it probably gets harder as you get older (laughs). When I was 17, I did A Little Night Music at New York City Opera, and opening night I became incredibly aware of how many people fit in that room, and I really sort of psyched myself out. But then you do it and it’s fine and you forget that anybody is even watching you. But yeah, I had a little panic attack moment, when I thought about how many people would be looking at me — and 17 is an age where you are not sure if you want people to be looking at you or not.
Q: And you made your first film at what, 16? What was that like?
AK: I turned 17 when we were filming Camp. You know, it was one of those things, it never really felt like we could possibly be making a real film, because it was just a bunch of kids who’d never been in a film before (laughs).
Q: Did making a film feel different from being on stage?
AK: Yeah, it did. But you know it was a unique and special first film and none of us had been in a film before, so that was rare. And we all came from a theatre background so we all had the same kind of experience. It was like “What just happened? Did we just film something?” (laughs). Because there was no audience reaction, of course. On stage, something happens and there’s the energy of the audience and you can feel it — it’s very real.
Q: So film is a different discipline that you had to learn.
AK: Yes. And each of us sort of realized when they turn the camera on and they say action, nothing actually happens (laughs). And you have to make it happen. But it was this incredible thing where you felt like that couldn’t have possibly been it, that couldn’t have possibly been a performance. Because I know what a performance feels like, and that was just me talking and them pointing a camera at me. So that was a very strange hurdle to get over. But you know, it’s a different way of doing the same thing. You have to learn that too and I really enjoy the difference.
Q: So do you still miss that reaction you get from being on stage?
AK: Yeah. I mean it’s such a cliché, but there really isn’t anything like it, and it’s one of the weirder parts of the transition — not having the immediate validation. I think we were a bunch of very needy little actors (laughs) on Camp. Our poor director probably had to tell us how great we were, even more than most directors have to tell their actors.
Q: Well, you were young.
AK: We were young, and we just didn’t really understand how do you know it was good, no one applauded, so how do you know?
Q: But how does it feel now a few years on, when you do a film like this, which, again, calls for a very finely tuned performance?
AK: Yeah, I think it’s a tricky thing, there’s this expression about actors, that they get paid to wait, and I feel like you get paid to multitask, you know? You can be really good at your job, but then you have to remember to turn your face so you’re in your light and drop your shoulder, because George is in the background or something. And you’re going to cut him off and the whole shot is not going to work if you can’t do all of these things. And just slowly but surely, experience is the only thing that’s going to help that. Hopefully I’m getting better at it.
Q: Will you continue to do stage and film?
AK: Well, I haven’t done stage in a while. I think the last thing I did on stage was probably A Little Night Music, and I want to do it again. It just gets scarier, the more time you spend away from it. But also I love film, I love the medium and I’m having fun doing it, so I’ll figure it out.
Q: What do you like to do when you’re not working, what kind of things interest you?
AK: I watch a lot of films and I bake — just desserts and stuff. I make a flourless Hazelnut chocolate torte that’s great. I usually take that if I’m going round to friends for dinner. My life is always sort of a mess and it’s spilling out everywhere (laughs), so I like to go to other people’s houses.
Q: Do you enjoy living in Los Angeles?
AK: Yeah, it takes about a year to kind of get used to it, and it’s a kind of lonely city at first. And when I first arrived I didn’t know anybody. But one morning you wake up and it’s home. There are certainly people who seem like they are straight out of Beverly Hills 90210 (laughs). But I don’t know those people. And I’ve got some great friends there now and it’s good.
Yes, it’s another hot-chick-with-schlubby-and-or-otherwise-outclassed-guy comedy, but She’s Out of My League nearly scrapes the bottom of this already familiar barrel in its quest for laughs. There’s an interesting and most likely quietly devastating movie to be made from the basic idea at this film’s core — that of an average, working-class guy who’s so convinced of his general unworthiness that he subconsciously sabotages the golden romantic opportunity that falls into his lap — but this overly broad exercise in set-piece histrionics surely isn’t it.
Despite a couple loyal friends with whom he works, Pittsburgh airport security drone Kirk (Jay Baruchel) leads a pretty numbing existence. He’s habitually tortured by his older brother Dylan (Kyle Bornheimer) and has an ex-girlfriend, Marnie (Lindsay Sloane), who’s so thick with his parents that she and her new himbo boyfriend Ron (Hayes MacArthur) constantly hang out with his family. Things change when Molly (Alice Eve), a super-hot event planner, drifts into his life, courtesy of a forgotten iPhone. Soon they’re dating, even if Kirk can neither quite explain things to his friends nor seal the deal, physically.
With his Barney Fife physicality and ably communicated set of self-negating tics, Baruchel, a bit player in Tropic Thunder and several Judd Apatow projects, is the right sort of peg on which to hang this film’s conceit. And Eve (striking in Wayne Kramer’s Crossing Over) is a rather delightful presence. But the script, by Sex Drive writers Sean Anders and John Morris, feels like nothing but a slapdash first draft; it has a few outrageous moments (all available in the film’s red-band trailer) but hits most of its capital-B beats in nervous, clamorous and cursory fashion, like a scene with a girl impressing a guy by knowing something about sports. Feature debut director Jim Field Smith’s absolutely leaden touch further sullies matters. T.J. Miller (aka Cloverfield‘s Hud) and Krysten Ritter (aka Breaking Bad‘s Jane) each eventually leave a fairly winning stamp on supporting roles, but it’s too little, too late. The script’s the thing, and She’s Out of My League is a halfheartedly executed idea that’s far less engaging than the sum of its parts. (Paramount, R, 104 minutes)
Much was made in the summer of 2000 over The Perfect Storm‘s unexpectedly robust $41 million-plus opening weekend, in which it rode a wave of popular appeal over the grand reveal of that massive, swelling wave effects shot, and trounced Roland Emmerich and Mel Gibson’s The Patriot by a considerable margin. (Emmerich in turn dove headlong into masturbatory FX destruction, perhaps never to return again to anything not involving the destruction of humankind, or at the very least a half dozen national landmarks.) But how significant can a film truly be, in terms of lasting appeal, if it’s misspelled in a studio Blu-ray/home video sell-thru email, as above? No simple typo, either. That means the graphic design intern flubbed it, and no one else caught it. Quiet volumes.
Greenberg director Noah Baumbach and critic Armond White do not like each other… partly because the latter suggested in a review that Baumbach’s mom should’ve had an abortion? Sweet Christ I’m glad I’m not involved in shenanigans like this. Writing with vitriolic flair (when deserved) is one thing, but ad hominem attacks of that sort make clear that the critic’s chief interest is really himself, which shouldn’t be the case. The closest I’ve come to being the subject of a filmmaker vendetta, to my knowledge, is Troy Duffy, who threatened me over the phone and helped orchestrate a campaign of minor harassment on occasion of the original release of The Boondock Saints.
The DVD cover, with a fanged, bulbous-nosed ghoul (evoking either memories of Stephen King’s It or perhaps former Speaker of the House Tip O’Neill, depending on how you passed your time in the 1980s) superimposed over a rickety mansion, doesn’t necessarily do wonders for one’s expectations regarding low-budget horror flick House of Fears. And the inferred shortcomings come to fruition, don’t you know, unfolding almost in lockstep with a familiar trapped-kids-being-tormented-by-their-fears plot that sadly does not feature the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man.
After a brief framing preamble, House of Fears unfolds in present day Salem,
Oregon, where a group of friends ditch a party and head over to a
haunted house the night before it opens for the Halloween season,
sneaking in for a fun night of scaring their dates. There’s Hailey (Sandra McCoy) and the guy she’s crushing on, Carter (Corey Sevier), as well as the former’s tag-along stepsister, Samantha (Corri English). And there’s Candice (Alice Greczyn, the randy Amish babe from Sex Drive), who invites along her ex-boyfriend Devon (Michael Pagan), much to the consternation of Zane (Eliot Benjamin), the group’s inside hook-up to the venue.
The set-up of the house involves passing through various levels of “fear.” Soon upon entering, however, the sextet find themselves trapped, with no way to exit. Their planned evening of fun devolves into a nightmare, as they lose their guide Zane and begin to disappear and die in a variety of freakish ways. With every avenue of escape blocked, and it becoming increasingly difficult to discern what’s real and what’s perhaps fake, the dwindling survivors must try to trust one another and negotiate a path out.
There’s a little bit of pop to some of the dialogue early on (“My insurance doesn’t cover hormones,” Hailey’s protective dad spits when he catches her trying to sneak out), but it’s almost immediately too great of a hurdle and suspension of disbelief for McCoy (now 30, though younger when it was shot) and many of her costars to pass as teenagers, and the party-hearty set-up and kids-acclimating-themselves-to-the-house material that precedes the not-terribly-gory bloodletting is all nondescript filler. Working from a script by Steven Lee and John Lyde, director Ryan Little (who also shot the movie himself) leans heavily on overly familiar gimmicks (in-camera flash cuts, close-ups to mask a lack of set dressing) that rob the film of tension. And, as mentioned, House of Fears isn’t a buckets-of-blood-type movie. Hardcore horror aficionados won’t spark to the gore, of which there is very little; there aren’t enough genuine thrills, meanwhile, for the sort of teen audiences who are less wedded to the genre, and just like to be emotionally goosed by movies like I Know What You Did Last Summer and The Grudge. The movie essentially plays like an average Scooby-Doo episode if made by a guy who’d seen some early, low-rent Tobe Hooper flicks.
Housed in a regular plastic Amaray case, House of Fears comes to DVD presented in 1.78:1 widescreen, with a motion-animated menu screen, and an English language 2.0 stereo audio track. Divided into 14 chapters, its air-quote special features consist only of a photo gallery montage which intercuts between film stills and behind-the-scenes pictures, as well as the movie’s preview trailer. To purchase the DVD via Amazon, click here. D+ (Movie) D+ (Disc)
I dig the blogosphere, broadly speaking (viva variety), but one thing that’s wearying is how the utterly mindless pursuit of traffic ends up reinforcing this herd mentality, wherein a single new photo or trailer or happening MUST BE POSTED, even if there’s no particularly pronounced tie-in/connection with said host site, or even any attendant commentary beyond the most titillating, rib-nudging headline. (See above.) So that means there’s like 15 or 20 movie, music and entertainment-adjacent sites today with Zooey Deschanel’s She & Him hipster porn, a new music video involving hula hoops and dainty skips. (You’re welcome, L.A. Weekly — I picked your link at random.) The overload is such that you sometimes just get the feeling the Internet is the same 5,000 people reading the same 500 sites, circle-jerking to the same rotating menu of 50 topics. When is someone going to deliver a 700-word treatise on the hatwear in Johnny Depp’s filmography?
