Feeds:
Posts
Comments

“ABOUT ELLY”: Left behind

June 11, 2015 by butlerscinemascene

** as ***

Golshifteh Farahani as Sepideh

“ABOUT ELLY” My rating: B

119 minutes | No MPAA rating

Three families share a long weekend in a rented (and rundown) villa along Iran’s Caspian coast. There’s much good-natured joking, dancing, smoking, cooking out, eating.

These individuals — old law school acquaintances who’ve done well (at least if the BMWs they drive are any indication) — are joined on their mini-vacation by two visitors.  The first is their old friend Ahmad (the charismatic Shahab Hosseini), who lives in Germany and was recently divorced. The second is Elly (Taraneh Alidoosti), who teaches the young daughter of Sepideh, one of the wives.

Without consulting anyone else Sepideh (Golshifteh Farahani) has  invited the single Elly along for the weekend. Ostensibly Elly is there to watch the kids, but it doesn’t take the group long to figure out that Sepideh is playing matchmaker. Especially when she tells the manager of their rental property that Ahmad and Elly are honeymooners. (Iran’s morality police surely would frown on this arrangement, no matter how innocent it seems by Western standards.)

The first 40 or so minutes of “About Elly” — from writer/director Asghar Farhadi, who had a huge art house hit with “A Separation” — are devoted to the settling-in process. Gas and electricity must be turned on, bags unpacked, months of dust and cobwebs swept out. Ahmad and Elly take a brief drive — neither wants to talk about why they’re both there. Several times during the first afternoon, in fact, Elly tries to leave to catch a bus back to Teheran. She’s talked out of it by Sepideh.

And then one of the children nearly drowns. After the confusion and panic of his rescue and resuscitation die down, someone notices that Elly is missing.

Did she make good on her plan to return home? Was she snatched (apparently the beach has a high crime rate)? Did she try to rescue the drowning boy and herself succumb to the waves?

The police are called, a search and rescue boat dispatched.  Nothing. If Elly did indeed drown, her body will wash up within a day or two.

Talk about putting a damper on the weekend!
Continue Reading »

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , | Leave a Comment »

“GEMMA BOVARY”: Toying with a classic

June 11, 2015 by butlerscinemascene

Gemma Arterton and Fabrice Luchini

Gemma Arterton and Fabrice Luchini

“GEMMA BOVARY” My rating: C+  (Opening June 12 at the Tivoli)

99 minutes | MPAA rating: R

Going in, the logical assumption is that Anne Fontaine’s “Gemma Bovary” is a present-day updating of Flaubert’s classic Madame Bovary (a straight cinematic adaptation opens today at the Cinetopia).

Actually, it’s more complicated and ambitious than that.  Perhaps too ambitious for its own good.

The story is told through the narration of Martin (Fabrice Luchini), the sixty-ish baker in a rural Normandy burg. He tells us that he used to be a literary editor in Paris, but gave it up for an uncomplicated life in the sticks.

Now he’s bored silly.

So he takes special interest when he discovers that his new neighbors, a young English couple, are named Charles and Gemma  Bovary (Jason Flemyng, Gemma Arterton). Quelle coincidence…the newcomers have almost exactly the same names as Flaubert’s characters.

Fascinated and not a little turned on by his pretty new neighbor, Martin befriends the Bovarys (Charles restores antiques, Gemma is an interior decorator specializing in trompe l’oeil) and begins actively studying (or spying on) them.

When he realizes that Gemma — going a bit stir crazy with rural life — has turned to a young law student (Niels Schneider) for a torrid affair, Martin smells a looming disaster. He moves surreptitiously to nip the illicit romance in the bud.

But good deeds can have unforeseen and disastrous consequences. Continue Reading »

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , | Leave a Comment »

“JURASSIC WORLD”: Bigger. Faster. More teeth.

June 11, 2015 by butlerscinemascene

jur ydln1orxqd4neeasuboo“JURASSIC WORLD”  My rating: C+ 

 124 minutes  | MPAA rating: PG-13

Bigger. Faster. More teeth.

That’s the corporate mantra at Jurassic World, the island theme park built on the ruins of the original Jurassic Park. This business stays on top by every few years introducing a spectacular new genetically modified attraction to keep the crowds coming.

Because with the short attention span of the average tourist, plain old dinosaurs aren’t enough.

“Bigger, faster, more teeth” is also at the heart of the movie “Jurassic World,” the fourth entry in the groundbreaking special effects series.

Back in ’93, when Steven Spielberg unveiled the original “Jurassic Park,” just 10 minutes of CG-animated dinos was enough to guarantee a blockbuster. But in tech-savvy 2015, lifelike dinosaurs are a dime a dozen.

So we all know going in that the dinosaurs are going to be convincingly great. But can the series’ stewards surround the big brutes with a story and characters that matter?

Uh … no.

Director Colin Trevorrow (maker of the low-budget time-travel film “Safety Not Guaranteed”) works with three fellow screenwriters to distract us with a surplus of dinosaurs and action. But mostly “Jurassic World” is content to rehash ideas that were worn out when “Jurassic Park III” came out in 2001.

Not even uber-likable Chris Pratt can dispel the pall of been-there-done-that.

Pratt plays Owen, a Navy veteran working with a quartet of velociraptors (those man-sized mini-tyrannosaurs) he has raised like ducklings. Owen has trained these carnivores to treat him as their alpha male. They don’t take orders, exactly, but at least they don’t have him for breakfast.

What Owen doesn’t realize is that in the massive park geneticists have been mixing DNA to create the baddest dinosaur ever, the Indominus rex. Except that their new creation is way smarter than a lizard should be and has curious skills, like the ability to conceal itself by changing color and body temperature.
Continue Reading »

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , | Leave a Comment »

“MADAME BOVARY”: Desperate to be adored

June 11, 2015 by butlerscinemascene

Mia Wasikowska as Emma Bovary

Mia Wasikowska as Emma Bovary

“MADAME BOVARY” My rating: B 

118 minutes | MPAA rating: R

It is wise to approach a new screen version of Flaubert’s “Madame Bovary” with caution. (And today in KC we see the openings of two cinematic interpretations…see my review of “Emma Bovary.”)

In even the best of productions Flaubert’s tale of a foolish young wife — so convinced that she deserves a life of romance and luxury that she drives herself and her poor sap of a husband to ruin — is a downer.

The movies’ track record with Emma Bovary is spotty.  Americans are most familiar with the 1949 version starring Jennifer Jones, a spectacular beauty who oozed sexuality. It was easy enough to view her Emma as born to wickedness, and the character’s ultimate downfall must have proven particularly satisfying to misogynists who could argue that this is just the way these silly women are.

Now director Sophie Barthes emphasizes the tragedy in Flaubert’s tale by casting as Emma the wan Mia Wasikowska, who at age 25 could pass for a teenager. No voluptuary, Wasikowska — we first noticed her as the title character in Tim Burton’s “Alice in Wonderland” — has the physical presence of  a gawky adolescent.

In fact, Barthes and Felipe Marino’s screenplay opens with young Emma being educated by nuns. She’s a free spirit, though, who won’t follow instructions, and the next thing you know she’s being married off to country doctor Charles Bovary (Henry Lloyd-Hughes) and planted in his drab house in a drab village filled with drab people.

Continue Reading »

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a Comment »

“LOVE and MERCY”: When I grow up to be a man

June 4, 2015 by butlerscinemascene

Paul Dano as the young Brian Wilson

Paul Dano as the young Brian Wilson

“LOVE & MERCY” My rating: B+

120 ninutes | MPAA rating: PG-13

Several pages in The Book of Great American Lives should be reserved for the Beach Boys’ Brian Wilson, whose 72 years have been packed with genius, celebrity, madness and redemption.

There’s more to the Wilson saga than could ever be wedged into just one movie, but Bill Pohlad’s “Love & Mercy” spectacularly chronicles one man’s rise-fall-rise in riveting human (and musical) terms.

Pohlad, a first-time feature director with an impressive list of producing credits (“12 Years a Slave,” “Into the Wild,” “Brokeback Mountain”) and screenwriters Oren Moverman and Michael A. Lerner have come up with a brilliant way of presenting Wilson’s story.

They’ve made two movies: one set in the 1960s starring Paul Dano as the young Brian, the other in the mid-’80s with John Cusack taking on the role. They so cannily entwine the two that just as the first, earlier story is spiraling into tragedy, the second tale, of the middle-aged Brian, is struggling toward recovery.

Let’s acknowledge up front that neither Dano nor Cusack looks much like the real Brian Wilson. Nor do they really resemble each other.

Doesn’t matter. Through some sort of cinematic alchemy, each actor nails the essence of Wilson at different stages of life. And far from triggering a disconnect, the casting of two performers in the same role enhances the story’s richness.

“Love & Mercy” opens with a montage of newsreel-like re-creations of the early Beach Boys in action — on the concert stage, posing for publicity photos on the beach (most of them were not actually surfers), playing for a “Shindig”-like TV show (go-go girls as a backdrop).

These are the heady days of innocence, fame and hit singles. We sense almost immediately, though, that the songwriter and arranger, Brian, stands apart from the group. He’s an odd duck, unnerved by live performances, crippled by panic attacks and driven to create music that he can hear in his head but must struggle to capture on tape.

Continue Reading »

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a Comment »

“SUNSHINE SUPERMAN”: Following the thrill

June 4, 2015 by butlerscinemascene

and Carl Boneish....one huge leap for thrillseekers

Jean and Carl Boenish….one huge leap for thrill seekers

“SUNSHINE SUPERMAN”  My rating: B (Opens June 5 at the Tivoli)

100 minutes | MPAA rating: PG

Perhaps Carl Boenish had a premonition that he would die young.

Not that he was a gloomy sort. A legendary thrill-seeker and pioneer of the sport of BASE jumping — in which parachutists launch themselves off cliffs, bridges, skyscrapers and even towering antennas — Boenish was almost childlike in his enthusiasm for risk-taking.

But in addition to planning and executing daredevil stunts (which frequently ran afoul of the law and required elaborate secret agent-ish preparations), Boenish scrupulously documented his daring activities on celluloid, devising helmet-mounted cameras that allowed him to record sky dives and hair-raising plummets off rooftops.  It’s safe to say that without Boenish’s pulse-quickening footage,  “Sunshine Superman” would never have been made.

Director Marah Strauch makes extensive use of Boenish’s films (they’re way too slick to be called “home movies”), and these astounding images are the main selling point of this documentary about the fraternity of jumpers and the man whose devotion turned a dangerous hobby into a worldwide phenomenon.

Boenish was trained as an engineer but found in the early 1970s that he could parlay his love of sky diving into a gig as an aerial cinematographer, contributing action footage to Hollywood productions like “The Gypsy Moths.” He began creating his own spectacular short films, sometimes devoting two years to making a 15-minute production.

Continue Reading »

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , | Leave a Comment »

“ALOHA”: Hello. Goodbye.

May 28, 2015 by butlerscinemascene

Bradley Cooper, Emma Stone

Bradley Cooper, Emma Stone

“ALOHA” My rating: C (Opens wide on June 5)

105 minutes | MPAA rating: PG-13

“Aloha” can mean either hello or goodbye. Thus it’s an appropriate title for a movie that doesn’t know if it’s coming or going.

That the latest from writer/director Cameron Crowe isn’t a total disaster can be credited to players whose charisma helps paper over the screaming holes and loopy notions marring the doddering screenplay.

These performers are just good enough to wrest a few memorable moments from the general chaos of an eccentric romantic comedy that isn’t particularly romantic or funny.

Brian Gilcrest (Bradley Cooper) is a near-legendary former Air Force officer who was deeply involved in the U.S. space program.  But after a long career decline and injuries incurred while a contractor in Afghanistan, he’s now a mere shadow of his former self.

He’s returned to his old stomping grounds in Hawaii as an employee of multi-billionaire Carson Welch (Bill Murray), who has invested heavily in a private rocket program and needs the blessing of native Hawaiian leaders to pave over some public relations potholes.

Brian’s assignment is too look up his old friend, the king of the nativist Nation of Hawaii (Dennis Bumpy Kanahele, playing himself), and secure said blessing.

Meanwhile Brian is torn between two women.  First there’s Tracy (Rachel McAdams), the love he unceremoniously dumped 13 years earlier. She’s now married to an Air Force Officer (John Krasinski) and the mother of two.

The arrival of her old flame — even in his semi-decrepit condition — exacerbates Tracy’s doubts about her marriage and a husband whose verbal communications are painfully  limited.

The other woman is Allison Ng (Emma Stone), a hotshot fighter pilot and one-quarter Hawaiian who is assigned as Brian’s military escort.  Allison starts out all spit and polish with a salute so sharp it snaps air molecules — but after a few days as Brian’s wingman  her military bearing turns all gee-whiz girly.

Continue Reading »

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , | 1 Comment »

“AN HONEST LIAR”: Fighting fraud with fraud

May 28, 2015 by butlerscinemascene

James Randi

James Randi

“AN HONEST LIAR”  My rating: B 

90 minutes | No MPAA rating

James Randi has nothing against lying — at least under the right circumstances.

“It’s OK to fool people,” he says, “if it’s to teach them a lesson in how the world works.”

Under the name of The Amazing Randi, this 86-year-old stage magician (born Randall Zwinge) has devoted most of his life to debunking claims about the paranormal.  Randi doesn’t say that  faith healing, ESP and telekinesis do not exist. That sort of certainty is reserved for the true believers.

What he does claim — and he’s proven it in instance after instance — is that he can use his knowledge of stage magic to detect the deceptions practiced by metaphysical snake oil salesmen eager to exploit  the gullibility of their fellow humans.

A magician is honest, Randi maintains, because he tells you that he’s going to fool you — and then he fools you. And you love it.

“An Honest Liar,” Justin Weinstein and Tyler Measom’s documentary about Randi and his long crusade for scientific and critical thinking, is both gleeful good fun (it’s satisfying to see charlatans exposed) and touching as the tale of a man who on occasion has practiced his own deceptions.

While still a teen the magic-obsessed Zwinge ran away from his Toronto home and literally joined the circus. Over time he developed a stage act as The Amazing Randi. His strongest suit was as an escape artist — some experts claimed he surpassed Harry Houdini (the documentary opens with a real-time TV broadcast from the ’50s of Randi being hung upside down in a straightjacket and wriggling his way out).

In the ’70s and ’80s Randi became known as a debunker.  He took on professed miracle workers like the spoon-bending Uri Geller  and the faith-healing evangelist Peter Popoff (who was able to “diagnose” the health problems of total strangers thanks to an earpiece through which his wife read details off the information cards attendees filled out before each “service”).

“A man who heals the deaf doesn’t need a hearing aid,” Randi observes.

Continue Reading »

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , | Leave a Comment »

“TOMORROWLAND”: Back to the optimistic future

May 21, 2015 by butlerscinemascene

Britt Robertson, George Clooney

Britt Robertson, George Clooney

“TOMORROWLAND”  My rating: C

130 minutes | MPAA rating:  PG  

It’s overwritten, overcomplicated and overlong.

But if you can get past its narrative muddle, really irritating dialogue and a plethora of unanswered questions, “Tomorrowland” offers a potent metaphor about the triumph of human hope and ingenuity.

Wish it were enough. But this time the winning run of writer/director Brad Bird (“The Iron Giant,” “The Incredibles,” “Ratatouille,” “Mission: Impossible — Ghost Protocol”) has hit a major speed bump.

It’s not all bad news. George Clooney heads a fine (if not particularly well-used) cast, the state-of-the-art effects are terrific and the film (co-written by Damon Lindelof of “Prometheus,” “Star Trek Into Darkness” and TV’s “Lost”) cleverly taps into a deep well of baby boomer nostalgia.

Nevertheless, the film is an emotionally muted mess that can’t decide if it’s for kids or grown-ups.

It starts out promisingly enough. At the 1964 World’s Fair in NYC, young Frank Walker (Thomas Robinson) proudly submits his homemade jetpack to an invention contest.

His creation is rejected, but Athena (Raffrey Cassidy), a mysterious young girl with a Brit accent, introduces the boy to Tomorrowland, a futuristic city  in another dimension. Tomorrowland is accessed by a secret portal in Walt Disney’s major fair attraction, the “It’s a Small World” ride. (Bird, a big Disney buff, rarely misses an opportunity to tap into the shared childhood memories of his generation. And the Disney studio gets a plug for its theme park ride.)

In the present we are introduced to Casey (Britt Robertson), a brainy teen whose engineer dad is working his way to unemployment by dismantling NASA’s launch pads in Florida. (Haven’t you heard? The good old USA is pretty much out of the space business.)

Casey finds herself in possession of a mysterious  souvenir pin from the ’64 World’s Fair. When she touches it she is instantly transported to Tomorrowland, a bustling city of sleek towering buildings, zipping monorails and buzzing hovercraft where whatever you dream up can be made reality.

She begins investigating the origins of her pin, hooks up with Athena (who hasn’t aged a day in 50 years) and eventually finds herself with the now-adult Frank (Clooney), a hermit holed up in a farmhouse crammed with sophisticated electronics. Frank — who has a bank of TV screens monitoring environmental disasters, wars, water and food shortages, nuclear threats and social upheavals — is glumly awaiting the end of the world.

Literally. He even has an electronic clock counting down to the day a few weeks hence when it all goes to hell.

Continue Reading »

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , | Leave a Comment »

“THE 100-YEAR-OLD MAN WHO CLIMBED OUT THE WINDOW AND DISAPPEARED”: Gump happens

May 21, 2015 by butlerscinemascene

ssslsksksksks

On the lam: David Wiberg, Iwar Wilander, and Robert Gustafsson

“THE 100-YEAR-OLD MAN WHO CLIMBED OUT THE WINDOW AND DISAPPEARED” My rating: B- (Opening May 22 at the Glenwood Arts and Tivoli)

114 minutes | MPAA rating: R

Sweden gave us Ingmar Bergman, one of the true geniuses of the cinema.

But none of Bergman’s movies enjoyed anything like the boxoffice clout of “The 100-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared,” a picaresque comedy based on Jonas Jonasson’s international bestseller. Felix Herngren’s film is Sweden’s biggest domestic hit ever.

Those who equate Scandinavian cinema with dour soul searching are in for a pleasant surprise. “The 100-Year-Old Man…” can best be compared to “Forrest Gump” — the shambling story of one man’s life and his many encounters with the great and powerful.

Written by Herngren and Hans Ingemansson, this is really two stories, one unfolding over a single week in the present, the other spanning several decades and continents.

The “hero” of both is Allan Karlsson (Robert Gustafsson, sporting some pretty convincing old-man makeup).  In the present he’s an independent codger who on his 100th birthday stages a jailbreak from the nursing home where he reluctantly resides.  He hits the road and has adventures.

Allan is a bit of a doofus.  Not spectacularly stupid, but weirdly eccentric and focused on his own obsessions, particularly good liquor and blowing things up.

In the here and now Allan spends his last krona for a bus ticket, in the process absentmindedly departing with another passenger’s suitcase. The luggage is revealed to hold a fortune in cash intended for a big narcotics deal. As a result Allan and everyone he befriends on his trek will find themselves pestered by the members of a singularly inept biker gang and an international drug lord (Alan Ford) who wants his money back.

Along the way Allan teams up with  Julius (Iwar Wilander), a retired stationmaster  who has all sorts of ideas of how to spend their windfall, and Benny (David Wiberg), a sad-sack thirtysomething perennial student who is always changing majors and as a result seems to know something about everything.

Continue Reading »

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , | Leave a Comment »

« Newer Posts - Older Posts »