Butler's Cinema Scene

Jennifer Lawrence, Josh Hutcherson

“THE HUNGER GAMES: CATCHING FIRE”  My rating: A- (Now showing)

146 minutes | MPAA rating: PG-13

Most fans of Suzanne Collins’ Hunger Games trilogy agree that the series peaked with the first book.

Nobody seems to have told the makers of “Hunger Games: Catching Fire.” Here’s a sequel that is not only a match for the original, but in many ways superior.

I was so wowed by the first film’s canny blend of crowd-pleasing elements and incisive political allegory – the series basically presents a world in which the one-percent have life-and-death power over everyone else – that I forgave some missteps. In retrospect, Gary Ross’s direction was a bit tentative and few moments (like the computer generated dog-beasts) rang false.

But under the direction of Francis Lawrence, “Catching Fire” is a tremendously accomplished work, one that remains slickly entertaining while reinforcing Collins’ potent socio/political agenda.

Picking up just a few months after the conclusion of the first film, “Fire” finds Hunger Games winners Katniss (Jennifer Lawrence) and Peeta (Josh Hutchinson) on a victory tour of the impoverished districts, where some rebellious souls insist on viewing them as revolutionary icons.

As you’ll recall, the two triumphed in the games by pretending to fall in love, thus engaging public support and allowing the operators of the game to declare both of them winners (normally only one combatant survives).  Having to pretend she’s in love with Peeta only makes Katniss more surly than usual. As for Peeta, he’s genuinely smitten by his woman warrior.

And then there’s the hunky Gale (Liam Hemsworth), for whom Katnis has genuine feelings. It’s a very touchy three-way relationship. Continue Reading »

“DELIVERY MAN” My rating: C- (Opens wide on Nov. 22)

103 minutes | MPAA rating: PG-13

In his latest film Vince Vaughn plays an irresponsible, ambitionless slacker for whom real work is an afterthought.

Wait a minute…that’s the character Vince Vaughn plays in most of his movies.

The twist in the squishy-soft comedy “Delivery Man” is that Vaughn’s character  finds that thanks to his regular donations to a sperm bank more than two decades ago, he is now the biological father of 533 children. What’s more, 142 of his offspring have filed a lawsuit against the fertility clinic, hoping to discover Daddy’s identity.

So that they can, like, bond with him or something.

Vaughn’s David Wozniak drives a delivery truck for his family’s Manhattan meat wholesaling biz. He’s inept at even this simple job…he’s always late making his rounds, has a world-class collection of parking citations, and frequently sees his truck towed by the cops.

He’s got a girlfriend whom he ignores for days on end (Cobie Smulders of TV’s “How I Met Your Mother”); plus, she’s pregnant and isn’t sure she wants a loser like David on her team.

He’s growing hydroponic pot in his apartment.

Oh, yeah, David also has a gambling problem. He owes $100,000 to loan sharks who periodically send thugs to rough him up and, when that produces no results, they take to assaulting David’s elderly father.

In a word, David is worthless. So of course writer/director Ken Scott devotes this film to proving he’s really a great, cuddly, nice guy.

Continue Reading »

“THE DALLAS BUYERS CLUB”  My rating: B (Opening wide on Nov. 22 )

117 minutes | MPAA rating: R

The critical resurrection of Matthew McConaughey’s career forges ahead with “The Dallas Buyers Club,” which finds him dropping a fifth of his body weight to portray an HIV-infected cowboy/con man.

But McConaughey isn’t the only actor undergoing a big transformation here. Equally impressive is erstwhile studmuffin Jared Leto, who not only does the crash diet thing but reinvents himself as a transvestite hooker.

Talk about trolling for Oscars, fellas.

When we first meet Ron Woodruff (McConaughey) he’s doing a cowgirl in one of the bronco chutes at a rodeo. Director Jean-Marc Vallee (“The Young Victoria”) wastes no time in establishing Ron’s bona fides as a ladies’ man.

Early on we learn that the gaunt rodeo rider is also a hustler who’ll set up a betting pool – his horsey buddies wager on how long a fellow rider can stay atop a bull – and then try to flee with the money without paying off the winners.

Ron lives in a mobile home that has seen better days. He drinks. He does drugs. He stages orgies.

He’s contemptuous of anyone who doesn’t share his homophobic, racist, good ol’ boy Texas view of things.

Ron is about to get his comeuppance. Injured on the job (he’s an electrician), he’s taken to a hospital. When the doctors come to talk to him they’re wearing surgical masks. They inform him that he has tested positive for the HIV virus. Continue Reading »

Mohsen Ramezani

“THE COLOR OF PARADISE” screens at 1:30 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 23, at the Kansas City Central Library, 14 W. 10th St., as part of the film series Middle Eastern Voices.

“The Color of Paradise” can reduce even the most jaded filmgoer to open-mouthed astonishment.

Iranian writer/director Majid Majidi has taken a tale that would have made Dickens proud and presented it in such a way that it seems both utterly realistic and achingly poetic.

Simultaneously a religious parable and a socially conscious drama, “The Color of Paradise” is unforgettable.

Mohammad (Mohsen Ramezani) is an 8-year-old boy who spends most of each year in a Tehran school for the blind. Now, at the end of term, he’s left twiddling his thumbs while all the other children are picked up by their parents.

Left alone in a park-like setting, Mohammad’s attention is focused on nearby chirping. A tiny bird has fallen from a tree and is being threatened by a hungry cat; on hands and knees Mohammad searches for the distressed creature, retrieves it and then risks his neck by climbing up the tree, feeling his way along the branches, and replacing the hatchling in its nest.

Continue Reading »

There was before “Breathless,” and there was after “Breathless.”

Few movies have done so much to change film culture.

Jean-Luc Godard’s 1960 film screens at 1:30 p.m. Sunday, November 17,  at the Plaza Branch, 4801 Main St. It’s part of the ongoing Movies That Matter free film series.  I’ll be showing the film and giving a brief talk before and after the movie.

How big a game-changer can one movie be?

Pretty damn big.

More than any other movie, “Breathless” drew the world’s attention to the French New Wave, a movement of movies created by young critics-turned-directors. These filmmakers – among them Claude Chabrol, Francois Truffaut, Alain Resnais, and many others – were united not by style or subject matter but by their defiance of the status quo.

The New Wave was a rebellion against the complacency of the French film industry. Instead of aiming for polished, well-made productions, the New Wavers often worked in the streets with skeleton crews, exploring subject matter and attitudes at odds with the official cinema culture.

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“PERSEPOLIS” screens at 1:30 a.m. Saturday, Nov. 16 at the Kansas City Central Library, 14 W. 10th St., as part of the film series Middle Eastern Voices.

Animation has for so long been the domain of fairy-tale heroines and wise-guy bunnies that it’s a shock to discover that the form can tell human stories with the depth of great literature.

That’s what we have in “Persepolis,” the animated French-made feature based on Marjane Satrapi’s graphic novels about her youth in revolutionary Iran.

There’s nothing remotely cute here, thematically or visually. Told in black-and-white line drawings occasionally relieved by splashes of color or subtle shading, this film by Satrapi and Vincent Paronnaud could have been shot as live action.

But animation adds another dimension; the movie’s minimalist style allows us to zero in on the emotions unfolding on the screen without distractions that might pull the eye away from what really matters. It’s a heightened reality.

Continue Reading »

“THE PRIME MINISTERS: THE PIONEERS” My rating: B- (Opening Nov. 8 at the Screenland Crown Center)

116 minutes | No MPAA rating

I’m not exactly sure what to make of Richard Trank’s “The Prime Ministers: The Pioneers.”

It’s not precisely pro-Israel propaganda, though it sometimes feels like it.

The documentarty is based on the best-selling memoirs of Yehuda Avner, who served as an aide and speechwriter to five Israeli prime ministers. Yet it  feels curiously impersonal — even though the 80-something Avner is frequently on camera as a talking head.

On one level it’s a sweeping summation of 50 years of Middle Eastern history: war, terrorism, diplomacy. On  another it’s curiously myopic.

The film follows Avner from his boyhood in England to his new life in the infant state of Israel. He must have been an effective diplomatic and political operative, since he served in the administrations of Levi Eshkol, Golda Meir, Yitzhak Rabin, Menachem Begin, and Shimon Peres.

The film has been impressively made, featuring state-of-the-art production and a treasure trove of vintage newsreel footage and still photographs chronicling the early years of the Jewish state.  Sandra Bullock, Michael Douglas, Leonard Nimoy and Christoph Waltz are among the well-known actors who lend their voices to the effort.

There’s an immense amount of history here (most of it leading up to and through the Meir era…the years of Rabin, Begin and Peres will be dealt with in another documentary coming out next year).

Yet the film lacks a center. Ostensibly it should be Avnder himself, a witness to so much history. But he comes off as calm, polite, and a bit detatched…less  a dynamic doer than a fly on the wall who served and observed the great and powerful around him. He’s got some good stories — including one about visiting Harry Truman in Independence — but his modesty makes for an emotionally underwhelming expereince.

“The Prime Ministers: The Pioneers” might best be viewed as a sort of survey course in Israeli history, peppered with sometimes surprising insider anecdotes.

But while it chronicles Israel’s ongoing conflicts with its Islamic neighbors, the film sidesteps all mention of why  so much of the Arab world is bent on eradicating the Jewish nation. It’s not like the doc is overtly anti-Arab…its tone is more one of indifference. A person unschooled in the history of the region could come away from this movie without much of an understanding of what the conflict is all about.

| Robert W. Butler