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Archive for November, 2012

“THE IMPOSTER”: An onion with no center

Posted in Documentaries on November 8, 2012| 1 Comment »

Nicholas Barclay, age 13

“THE IMPOSTER” My rating: A- (Opening Nov. 9 at the Tivoli)

99 minutes | MPAA rating: R

If a Hollywood feature film came along to tell the same story related in the new doc “The Imposter,” I’d write it off as a typical bit of Tinseltown overstatement and the product of a screenwriter with a tenuous grasp on reality.

(In fact, it did become a feature film, 2010’s “The Chameleon” with Ellen Barkin and Famke Janssen. The movie never played in KC.)

But “The Imposter” is the real deal, a hair-raising, gut knotting true-life tragedy that will leaving you brooding and marveling.

In 1994 13-year-old Nicholas Barclay failed to return to his suburban San Antonio home after spending an evening  playing video games on a nearby military base. No trace of him was ever found.

His mother, Beverly Dollarhide, older sister Carey Gibson, and other family members mourned, got angry, sought answers, and finally accepted that they’d never know what happened to Nick.

Then, three years later, they received word from authorities in a small Spanish city that Nick had been found. He had a story of being kidnapped, kept as a sexual slave, and living as a homeless teen. Now he was being held in a youth facility, waiting for a family member to come get him.

Only it wasn’t Nicholas at all, but rather a 23-year-old French man named Frederic Bourdin. Bourdin’s eyes and hair were a different color than Nicholas’ and he spoke English with a French accent.  Yet Nicholas’ blue-collar clan brought him to America, embraced him, nurtured him, and got him therapy for the many traumas he had experienced. They were completely taken in.

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“SMASHED”: Getting straight

Posted in Art house fare on November 8, 2012| Leave a Comment »

Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Aaron Paul

“SMASHED” My rating: C+ (Opening Nov. 9 at the Cinemark Palace and Glenwood at Red Bridge)

85 minutes | MPAA rating: R

Kate Hannah loves her job as an elementary school teacher.  She connects with the kids. She’s energetic, happy, eager.

And drunk.

So drunk that she pukes in front of her first graders. So ashamed that she claims it was morning sickness. Now she has to endure the travesty of a baby shower from her fellow teachers.

“Smashed” is a sort of update of “The Days of Wine and Roses,” starring Mary Elizabeth Winstead as Kate and Aaron Paul (“Breaking Bad”) as her husband,  Charlie.

As rendered by writer/director James Ponsoldt (whose first feature was 2006’s “Off the Black” with Nick Nolte as an alcoholic…is there a trend here?), “Smashed” is solid but unspectacular. It really breaks no new ground — but then perhaps every generation needs its own addiction story.

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“CHINESE TAKE-AWAY”: International Mutt ‘n Jeff

Posted in Uncategorized on November 2, 2012| Leave a Comment »

“CHINESE TAKE-AWAY”  My rating: B (Opens Nov. 2 at the Glenwood Arts)

93 minutes | No MPAA rating

“Chinese Take-Away” opens with one of the weirdest images you’ll see in movies this year.

On an idyllic lake in China two young lovers sit in a boat. The boy has a couple of wedding rings…he’s preparing to propose. And then a cow falls from the sky, shattering the boat and, in the process, the kid’s life.

Next thing you know we’re in Buenos Aires, Argentina, in the tiny hardware store operated by Roberto (Ricardo Darin).  He’s a middle-aged grump, sour and solitary, obsessed with making sure that when his suppliers sell him a box of 500 screws that there are actually 500 screws in the box.  He spends a lot of time counting screws…that and collecting tiny blown glass animals for a shrine to his late mother, who died giving birth to him..

Sebastian Borensztein’s comedy with a heart throws together the truculent Roberto with a visitor, Jun (Ignacio Huang), that same young man from the comic/tragic prologue. Jun has traveled to Argentina to live with an uncle who immigrated there years before. But the uncle has moved out of the city to parts unknown and the childlike Jun, who speaks not a word of Spanish, must throw himself upon the comfort of strangers — or at least on the comfort of the strange Roberto.

That you can see where “Chinese Take-Away” is going doesn’t really diminish its pleasures. Roberto tries repeatedly to ditch his unwelcome guest, but his conscience always gets the best of him. For his part, Jun does what he can to be useful to his benefactor. And his presence does have one upside…it shows Roberto’s off-and-on girl (Muriel Santa Ana) that he’s not such a curmudgeon after all.

The joy in all this is the balancing of Roberto’s surly pessimism against Jun’s sad innocence. Together they make a pretty complete human being.

| Robert W. Butler

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“SOMEWHERE BETWEEN”: Oreos

Posted in Documentaries, Uncategorized on November 2, 2012| Leave a Comment »

“SOMEWHERE BETWEEN” My rating: C+  (Opening Nov. 2 at the Tivoli)

88 minutes | No MPAA rating

The adolescent girls who are the focus of the documentary “Somewhere Between” often refer to themselves as Oreos: White on the inside, yellow (or Chinese) on the outside.

Linda Goldstein Knowlton’s documentary concentrates on four girls born in China, abandoned by their parents (China’s one-child-per-family policy has pushed thousands of couples to give up their female offspring until a more-prized boy comes along) and adopted by Americans.

In most respects these girls (they’re not young women yet, though a couple exhibit a maturity far beyond their years) are thoroughly Americanized. They tend to be high achievers. One is a fervent Christian. Another is determined to be the first Chinese-American to perform on the stage of the Grand Ol’ Opry.

But they’re still children, emotionally vulnerable and, despite their happy circumstances, torn by the fact that they weren’t wanted by their birth parents.

The film runs on two parallel tracks. There’s the story of their lives in the U.S.: birthday parties, church services, sports, academics, boyfriends.

And then there are the efforts (often hopeless, but sometimes remarkably successful) of these girls to discover their birth parents back in China. In at least one case this results in a girl discovering her father, two older sisters and a little brother.

We meet an adoptive mother who has launched a charity to send relief aid to abandoned children in China and spend time on a European tour sponsored by a worldwide support organization for adopted Chinese girls.

My main problem with “Somewhere Between” is not with the information it imparts, but in the relative dryness of the delivery. Knowlton exhibits competance but not much real inspiration.

Still, for families that have adopted Chinese girls or are thinking of doing so, the film is required viewing.

| Robert W. Butler

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“FLIGHT”: A gulp of stale beer and a snort of cocaine

Posted in Uncategorized on November 2, 2012| 1 Comment »

“FLIGHT” My rating: B (Opens wide on Oct. 26)

139 minutes | MPAA rating: R

Whip Whitaker is one cocky S.O.B.

After a sleepless night of nonstop sex with a gorgeous naked woman half his age, Whip – played by Denzel Washington — lurches out of bed in a Tampa hotel room and gets his day started with a gulp of stale beer and a snort of cocaine.

Then he suits up in his spiffy captain’s uniform and goes to the airport, where he further fortifies himself with three mini-bottles of vodka lifted from the cabin attendants’ cart before settling in behind the controls.

It’s 9 a.m. and Whip has already consumed enough mind-altering substances to lay most of us out flat, but all this excess seems only to make him more confidant and charming.

And when on this particular flight he encounters a horrific mechanical malfunction that sets his plane screaming toward the red dirt of Georgia, Whip doesn’t panic. Instead (in a spectacular sequence that will have some of you gnawing your nails to the cuticles) he exudes calm competence, putting the uncooperative aircraft through a seemingly impossible series of maneuvers (like flying upside down) before bringing it more or less safely to rest (only six deaths) in a field. (more…)

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