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“EXODUS: GODS AND KINGS”: Brave, maybe…definitely not clean or reverent

December 11, 2014 by butlerscinemascene

Joel Edgerton and Christian Bale as Rhamses and Moses

Joel Edgerton and Christian Bale as Ramses and Moses

“EXODUS: GODS AND KINGS” My rating: C

150 minutes | MPAA rating: PG-13

Ridley Scott’s “Exodus: Gods and Kings” runs for almost 2 1/2 hours — and that still isn’t enough time for it to figure out why it’s here or what it wants to say.

It’s based, of course, on the Old Testament story of the exodus of the captive Hebrews from Egypt, but the filmmakers are obviously ambivalent over matters of faith. Heck, they explain away the story’s supernatural elements as the result of a bump to Moses’ noggin.

This is the second monster-budget biblical epic of the year (it follows Darren Aronofsky’s over-produced and over-thought “Noah”). If Hollywood doesn’t believe, why does it bother?

In a word: spectacle. Scott and his visual wizards pull out the stops to create the thriving Egyptian capital of Memphis, the parting and unparting of the Red Sea, a slam-bang  battle with an invading army.

But on a spiritual and dramatic level “Exodus” is a creaky affair.

Most of us are familiar with Cecil B. DeMille’s 1956 “The Ten Commandments,” an alternately silly and awe-inspiring affair. DeMille may have had the dramatic instincts of a snake oil salesman, but he was a fierce believer in his own showmanship, and if you can ignore the absurd emoting, his epic remains ridiculously entertaining.

Scott, on the other hand, delivers a film that is, well, grumpy. For all the f/x wizardly, there’s not much joy or discovery to be had. “Exodus” feels like a paint-by-numbers job assembled by an indifferent committee

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“POINT AND SHOOT”: True-life adventure

December 11, 2014 by butlerscinemascene

Matthew Vandyke and freedom fighting colleagues

Matthew Vandyke and freedom fighting colleagues

“POINT AND SHOOT” My rating: B

83 minutes | No MPAA rating

When we first see Matthew VanDyke, the subject of the riveting and perplexing documentary “Point and Shoot,” he’s dressed like a ninja and addressing his video camera as he describes where on his body he can hide knives.  The guy looks like a laid-back hippie, but he wants us to be aware that he knows his way around deadly weapons.

VanDyke is tall, thin, and good looking…but there’s a whiff of asshole-ism in the air.  What kind of dweeb makes videos of himself brandishing weapons?

Marshall Curry’s doc — a collaboration with VanDyke — immerses us in an impressive true-life story.  VanDyke grew up a loner in Baltimore, tormented by obsessive compulsive disorder (he’s always having to jump up to wash his hands and cannot abide being near sugar). He immersed himself in violent video games, make-your-own-adventure books and action movies. VanDyke  was one of those guys who took Schwarzenegger and Van Damme seriously.

A MENSA brainiac, he studied the Middle East at the University of Maryland, graduating summa cum laude, and went on to graduate work at Georgetown U.’s Walsh School of Foreign Service.

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“A GIRL WALKS HOME ALONE AT NIGHT”: Erotic dance of death

December 11, 2014 by butlerscinemascene


girl-walks-home-alone“A GIRL WALKS HOME ALONE AT NIGHT” My rating: B+ 

99 minutes | No MPAA rating

How the hell did this movie ever get made in Iran?

That’s what I found myself asking about 10 minutes into the evocative, eerie, totally mesmerizing “A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night,” a vampire movie unlike any we’ve seen before.

As it turns out, “A Girl Walks Home…” wasn’t made in Iran. Oh, it’s in Farsi (the language of Iran) and the cars bear Iranian license plates and the principal players were born in Iran.  Plus, the lead character wears a chador, the long cape-like garment that is more or less required of women in female-phobic Iran.

But Ana Lily Amirpour’s Sundance-sponsored debut feature was actually shot near Bakersfield, CA. Which explains how it can dish nudity, drug abuse, lurid violence, and a huge shot of slow-simmering sexuality — topics the Iranian morality police would never countenance.

Their loss. This is a terrific film, not so much for its narrative (which deals mostly in suggestion) as for the haunting atmosphere it evokes.

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“LAST DAYS IN VIETNAM”: Peace with dishonor?

December 11, 2014 by butlerscinemascene

U.S. naval crews jettison helicopters to make more room for evacuees

U.S. naval crews jettison helicopters to make more room for evacuees

“LAST DAYS IN VIETNAM” My rating: B

98 minutes | No MPAA rating

Rory Kennedy’s “Last Days in Vietnam” is a riveting and rather depressing bit of history.

For the last 40 or so years Americans have avoided taking too close a look at Vietnam, the first military conflict in our history in which the U.S.A. did not emerge victorious.  Kennedy’s documentary brings to life the final closing chapter of that sad story, and even among the chaos and defeat finds moments of extreme heroism.

The 1973 Paris Accord was supposed to have ended the war in Vietnam, allowing American troops to withdraw as part of Richard Nixon’s “peace with honor” pledge to the nation. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger envisioned a situation not unlike that in Korea, with a Communist Vietnam in the north and a democratic government in the south, each staying to their side of a demilitarized zone.

The peace held, we learn, because the Communists were terrified that Nixon was looking for a provocation to go Medieval on the North — heavy bombing raids or perhaps even the nuclear option.

But when Nixon resigned in 1974, a victim of the Watergate affair, leaders in North Vietnam saw their chance.  They launched a new invasion of the South.

President Gerald Ford asked Congress to authorize millions to shore up the South Vietnamese military.  But after more than a decade of a hugely unpopular war, members of Congress weren’t about to throw more money into the maw.

As the Communist troops advanced southward,  Americans still in Vietnam had to face the likelihood that there would be mass executions of locals who had worked for or with the United States. It was, says one former CIA operative, a “terrible moral dilemma…Who goes? Who stays?”

The first priority was the nearly 7,000 Americans still in the country, many of them with Vietnamese wives and children.  Then there were the United States’ allies and collaborators — nearly a half million of them when you include their families.

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“PELICAN DREAMS”: Feathered friends

December 4, 2014 by butlerscinemascene


Brown_Pelican_at_Ponce_Inlet_-_Flickr_-_Andrea_Westmoreland“PELICAN DREAMS” My rating: C+

80 minutes | No MPAA rating 

Filmmaker Judy Irving loves our feathered friends, as was evidenced by her excellent 2003 documentary “The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill,” about a flock of invasive birds who over decades have become a San Francisco tourist attraction.

Since childhood she has had a particular affection for pelicans, which she calls “flying dinosaurs.”

Her documentary “Pelican Dreams” starts with cell-phone footage of an injured/lost pelican that has stopped traffic on the bustling Golden Gate Bridge.  The animal is captured by a taxi driver who throws a blanket over it and drives it to an avian recovery facility.  Irving followed and was inspired enough by what she saw to devote an entire film to the California brown pelican.

It’s a somewhat ramshackle affair, a bit of loose, personal filmmaking that reminds me a bit of the gee-wiz enthusiasm of Bruce Brown’s surfing docs (“Endless Summer”).

Irving takes us to the Channel Islands 40 miles off the coast, where brown pelicans breed and nest. She’s captured some wonderful footage — while mating the birds’ throat sacs turn bright red and their eyes, usually brown, somehow become a haunting blue. She gets footage of the baby pelicans, who have an extremely high morality rate.  She captures their first flights, and the coaching by older birds that shows them how to dive bomb into the surf in search of fish.

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“THE HOMESMAN”: Uncommonly alone

December 4, 2014 by butlerscinemascene

Tommy Lee Jones, Hilary Swank

Tommy Lee Jones, Hilary Swank

“THE HOMESMAN” My rating: B+ 

122 minutes | MPAA rating: R

At age 68, Tommy Lee Jones is not going gently.

His recent selection of film roles — “No Country for Old Men,” “The Company Men,” “In the Valley of Elah” — have found him facing the dark side of human nature (not to mention the darkness at the end of the line) with varying degrees of resistance and resignation.

His choices as an auteur are even bleaker.  He made his directing debut in 2005 with the angry, violent “The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada,” playing an American rancher transporting his friend’s body to Mexico for burial.

With his sophomore effort, “The Homesman,” Jones gives us a revisionist Western that defies expectations at every turn.

It’s a genuine art film in the vein of Aussie productions like “The Proposition.” Moreover, “The Homesman” embraces a world view as bleak as anything in Cormack McCarthy.

Hilary Swank is Mary Bee Cuddy, a single woman operating her own small farm in the Nebraska Territory of the 1850s.  In the opening scene she proposes marriage to her closest neighbor, a fellow eight or nine years her junior. For her effort Mary Bee is rejected as “homely and bossy.”  Well, she is definitely both.  But she is also, as she says, “uncommonly alone.”

The plot of “The Homesman” is kicked into gear by three local women (Miranda Otto, Grace Gummer, Sonja Richter) who all have gone mad during a miserable Nebraska winter. Continue Reading »

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“PENGUINS OF MADAGASCAR”: Avian Marxism (Groucho-style)

November 25, 2014 by butlerscinemascene

Penguins-of-Madagascar-Official-Trailer-2“PENGUINS OF MADAGASCAR” My rating: B

92 minutes | MPAA rating: PG

Some of the best moments in the three “Madagascar” films were delivered not by the stars — a lion and his zoo buddies — but by four peripheral figures.
We’re talking about the penguins, a bunch of madcap Marxists (of the Groucho variety) who have somehow gotten it into their fuzzy little heads that they are an elite military unit. Despite their overall incompetence, at a crucial moment these diminutive black-and-white commandos always come up with an outlandish plan to save the day.
The penguins have enjoyed their own animated TV series, and in DreamWorks’ “Penguins of Madagascar” they seize the big screen. If you’ve managed to overlook them so far, well, they’re kinda great.
Part of it is their distinct personalities, even though they look pretty much alike. The leader Skipper (voiced by Tom McGrath, who created the characters) is a distillation of every movie drill sergeant ever.  He spits out rapid-fire orders (Skipper’s mouth moves much faster than his brain) but has a soft spot for his “men.”
Kowalksi (Chris Miller) is the idea man, expected to come up with an appropriate plan for any contingency. Rico (Conrad Vernon) has a voracious appetite: He’ll gulp down just about anything, only to regurgitate those items days later when they are needed.
Finally there’s Private (Christopher Knights), the new kid, still finding his way and fawned over by the others.

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“THE THEORY OF EVERYTHING”: A brief history of the Hawkings

November 25, 2014 by butlerscinemascene

Eddie Redmayne and Felicity Jones as Stephen and Jane Hawking

Eddie Redmayne and Felicity Jones as Stephen and Jane Hawking

“THE THEORY OF EVERYTHING” My rating: B

123 minutes | MPAA rating: PG-13

Even if you’re familiar with the life and work of Stephen Hawking, there’s something humbling about seeing it depicted in a film.

One of the world’s greatest minds trapped in a body that refuses to cooperate.  A woman who cares for his every physical and emotional need and bears his children…at least until she cannot any more.

Time. Space. Infinity.

The first thing that should be said about “The Theory of Everything” is that it isn’t actually about Hawking’s cosmological theories of black holes and other scientific conundrums — though they are of  course mentioned in passing.  It is based on Jane Hawking’s memoir (most recently updated in 2013) and is more a relationship film than anything else.

Fine. We’d rather watch a people story than an illustrated physics lecture. And “Theory” provides the platform for two terrific performances from Eddie Redmayne and Felicity Jones, who must be considered on the short list for this year’s Oscar nominations.

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“FORCE MAJEURE”: Snowfall downfall

November 21, 2014 by butlerscinemascene

force-majeure-cannes-21“FORCE MAJEURE”  My rating: B

118 minutes | MPAA rating: R

Most of us would like to believe that if faced with a life-threatening crisis we would behave decently, nobly…even heroically.

Uh, probably not.  Most of us would be like Tomas, the husband and father whose act of cowardice becomes the topic of Ruben Ostlund’s terse, psychologically ravaging “Force Majeure.”

The Swedish Tomas (Johannes Kuhnke) has brought his wife Ebba (Lisa Kongsli) and two young children to posh ski resort in the French Alps.  They appear to be an utterly unremarkable young family.

But while eating lunch at an outdoor cafe, they witness a controlled avalanche set off by explosive detonations.  The churning wall of white speeds down a mountainside, hits the bottom of a valley, then begins rapidly climbing toward the terrace on which the diners are sitting.

“Doesn’t look controlled to me,” Ebba says.

Result: chaos.  People scream, run, freak out.  Ebba grabs her two children and hunkers down behind a table.  Tomas cuts and runs, returning to his loved ones only when it becomes clear that the snow never came close to the restaurant, that a cloud of white fog only made it appear that everyone was about to be buried alive.

 

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“WHIPLASH”: Monster mentor

November 17, 2014 by butlerscinemascene

Miles Teller, J.K. Simmons

Miles Teller, J.K. Simmons

“WHIPLASH”  My rating: B+

106 minutes | MPAA rating: R

Fletcher (J.K. Simmons) conducts the elite studio jazz band at New York City’s most prestigious conservatory of music.  He’s a musician and educator, though you might be forgiven for mistaking him for a Marine drill instructor…or perhaps a serial killer.

Fletcher enters the rehearsal room with the swagger of a gunslinger flinging open swinging saloon doors. His students don’t make eye contact.  They gaze at the floor or at their charts.  Nobody wants to draw the alpha wolf’s reptilian stare.

But that won’t save them. Fletcher is routinely profane, insulting, and capable of reducing a young musician to sobs. He seems to take great pleasure in finding a victim at every rehearsal.

“Either  you’re out of tune and deliberately sabotaging my band, or you don’t know you’re out of tune — and that’s worse.”

He’s smug, cruel and probably sexist, given his treatment of a woman player in a freshman ensemble: “You’re in first chair. Let’s see if it’s just because you’re cute.”

He punishes those who disappoint him not with pushups but with rehearsals that go on into the wee hours: “We will stay here as long as it takes for one of you faggots to play in time.”

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