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Archive for January, 2013

“ANY DAY NOW”: Gay soap opera

Posted in Art house fare, tagged , , on January 4, 2013| Leave a Comment »

any day now lede“ANY DAY NOW” My rating: C+ (Opening Jan. 4 at the Tivoli)

97 minutes | MPAA rating: R

As a showcase for the not-inconsiderable talents of Scottish actor Alan Cumming, “Any Day Now” is quite successful.

Travis Fine’s movie allows Cumming to wrap his tongue around an utterly convincing Queens accent, lets him sing several songs (including the Dylan standard “I Shall Be Released” that spawned the film’s title), and provides opportunities for him to dance it up as a female impersonator.

The film also lets  Cumming juggle just about every emotion known to humanity save, perhaps, the joy of childbirth. He’s falmboyant, giddy, hilarious, catty, sad, weepy, etc. etc. etc.

Problem is, his knockout perf is in the middle of a gay-themed soap opera that left me feeling emotionally used and abused.

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“PROMISED LAND”: The new Jimmy Stewart

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on January 4, 2013| Leave a Comment »

Rosemary DeWitt and Matt Damon in "Promised Land"

Rosemary DeWitt and Matt Damon in “Promised Land”

“PROMISED LAND”  My rating: B+ (Opening Jan. 4 at the AMC Studio 30 and Barrywoods 24)

120 minutes | MPAA rating: R

Matt Damon is this generation’s Jimmy Stewart. The guy rarely looks like he’s acting and yet we believe everything that comes out of his mouth, every gesture his characters make.

Certainly it’s hard to imagine any other contemporary actor pulling off what Damon accomplishes in “Promised Land,” a film that could easily have become a shrill pro-environmental screed but which, in Damon’s capable hands, becomes something far more challenging and subtle — a character study of an individual who may have convinced himself that wrong is right.

In the latest from director Gus Van Sant, Damon plays Steve Butler, a hotshot aquisitions man for a natural gas company. Steve’s job involves traveling around the country to purchase drilling rights from farmers and other property owners. He can take a failing ranch or a economically-strapped town and turn it into a cash cow.

As he unassumingly notes, he makes people millionaires. Clearly, Steve loves his job. He gets to hand out big chunks of money, turn around lives, leaves the world a better place.

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“THE IMPOSSIBLE”: When all seems lost

Posted in Uncategorized on January 4, 2013| Leave a Comment »

impossible tidal wave“THE IMPOSSIBLE” My rating: B+ (Opens Jan. 4 at the Glenwood Arts, Cinemark Palace, Palazzo 16 and Independence 20)114 minutes | MPAA rating: PG-13

It takes almost a determined act of will power to watch “The Impossible,” Juan Antonio Beyona’s hair-raising film about a vacationing family torn apart by the 2004 tsunami that ravaged Thailand’s resort-packed coast.

It’s that scary and painful.

A good thing, then, that “The Impossible” has been so beautifully acted, with Naomi Watts and Ewan McGregor giving what may be career-high performances as real-life couple separated by the disaster and, as their oldest son, young Tom Holland establishing himself as an actor of great promise.

Maria (Watts) and Henry (Ewan McGregor) live in Japan with their three boys. For Christmas they book a bungalow at an idyllic Thai resort where they take advantage of the snorkeling, sailing and swimming.

And then a wall of water 30 feet high roars in from the sea, toppling palm trees, flipping cars and tearing the family apart.

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“NOT FADE AWAY”: A Valentine to rock ‘n’ roll

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on January 4, 2013| Leave a Comment »

not fade kiss“NOT FADE AWAY” My rating: B (Opens Jan. 4 at the Tivoli)

112 minutes | MPAA rating: R

To date, David Chase’s major contribution to American arts has been as creator/producer of the cable hit “The Sopranos,” which along with its excellent drama and characterizations was forever pushing the envelope on TV violence, language and nudity.

For his first outing as a solo writer/director Chase puts away the blood bags and turns to his own adolescence. “Not Fade Away” is less a novel than a series of not-quite-nostalgic snapshots taken between 1963 and 1968.

It begins with two teenagers in suburban New Jersey staring at a shiny electric guitar in a store window. Their every third word is some variation on the f-bomb — I’m pretty sure Chase is foolin’ with us, delivering in one scene enough smutty talk to fill an entire movie. Then, our expectations of Chase-ian profanity fully met, he proceeds to deliver a very personal, sweet and slightly sad reverie on the role of rock ‘n’ roll in a young man’s life.

Our protagonist is Doug (John Magaro), who in 1963 is a skinny, unathletic dweeb hanging with similarly un-studly pals. The lives of these losers are transformed by the one-two-three punch of the Kennedy assassination, the first appearance of the Beatles on Ed Sullivan just weeks later, and the subsequent ascension of the Rolling Stones, who forced American teens to reckon with their own ignored blues heritage.

(The film’s title, of course, is that of a Buddy Holly song famously covered by the Stones.)

Doug is immediately smitten. The girls may not give him a second glance, but he knows he has rock star potential. He bones up on the drums and teams with his guitar-playing buddies Eugene (Jack Huston) and Wells (Will Brill) to form a band.  They’re pretty bad — at least until they start to get good.

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