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“NO PLACE ON EARTH”: Life in the dark

May 3, 2013 by butlerscinemascene

No Place 1“NO PLACE ON EARTH” My rating: B- (Opens May 3 at the Glenwood Arts)

83 minutes | MPAA rating: PG-13

 There’s a hell of a story at the heart of “No Place On Earth.”  But I do wish it had been better told.

The facts are pretty amazing.  During World War II several Ukrainian Jewish families took shelter from the Nazis in an immense gypsum cave system. After more than a year underground 38 men, women and children emerged to find that the Germans had retreated in the face of the Red Army.

While the men would periodically venture out in search of food and fuel, the women and children remained hidden, thus setting a world record for days spent underground. One girl – now an octogenarian – had forgotten what sunlight was like.

Janet Tobias’ documentary allows these now-elderly individuals to tell their own stories…and that’s both good and bad. 

Continue Reading »

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“TO THE WONDER”: Frolicking and gamboling

May 2, 2013 by butlerscinemascene

Ben Affleck, Olga Kuylenko...falling in love in France

Ben Affleck, Olga Kurylenko…falling in love in France

“TO THE WONDER” My rating: C (Opens May 3 at the Tivoli)

112 minutes | MPAA rating: R

There’s a temptation to write off “To the Wonder” as a dead-on satiric parody of a Terrence Malick film.

Except that it is a Terrence Malick film.

And since I don’t think Malick is making fun of himself, we are left to struggle with just what  this admittedly talented but hugely exasperating filmmaker is up to.

Hell, maybe he’s just perverse.

“To the Wonder” embraces all the elements that irritated people with his previous film, “The Tree of Life” (which I count as one of the great movies of the last decade) and jettisons all the good stuff.

The film may be the ultimate statement in Malick’s war on narrative. It’s visually poetic, yeah — like an artsy fartsy TV commercial where you can never figure out what they’re selling — but also emotionally empty. I couldn’t shake the feeling that the movie is throwing a hearty “fuck you” into our faces.

I’m going to assume Malick is not just giving us the finger here, that he has attempted to make a real piece of art, and that he has failed.

Happens to everyone. Now how about a plot next time?

Here’s what we can say with certainty. “To the Wonder” is about an American man (Ben Affleck) who on a trip to France falls in love with a young woman (Olga Kurylenko) and brings her and her young daughter back to live with him in the U.S.

Except that he resides in a treeless, flat, irony-free tract-home subdivision outside Bartlesville, OK. It’s a neighborhood hemmed in on one side by high-tension power lines and on the other by an Interstate. There’s an oil well in the back yard.

Hmmmm…let’s see.  Paris…or Oklahoma?  Gosh, it’s such a tough call.

It’s enough to make you think this woman hasn’t got a brain in her head. Continue Reading »

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“LORE”: Un-drinking the Kool-Aid

May 2, 2013 by butlerscinemascene

Saskia

Saskia Rosendahl, Kai Malina in “Lore”

Lore-3

“LORE”  My rating: B (Opening May 3 at the Tivoli )109 minutes | No MPAA rating

You’re born into a world of privilege and comfort. You grow up thinking you’re superior, that you’re entitled to all the good that comes your way.

And then it ends. Abruptly and forever.

That’s the situation facing five German children in “Lore,” Cate Shortland’s quietly devastating tale of siblings struggling to survive in the last days of World War II.

From the time of their births Lore (Saskia Rosendahl), Liesl (Nele Trebs), Gunther (Andre Frid) and Jurgen (Mika Seidel) have lived a blessed existence as the children of a high-ranking Nazi official. 

Now their father (Hans-Jochen Wagner) has returned to kiss them goodbye. The war is lost. The Americans, Russians and British are advancing and Papa’s work in the concentration camps makes him a marked man. Continue Reading »

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“THE ANGEL’S SHARE”: Redemption in whisky

April 25, 2013 by butlerscinemascene

Paul Brannigan

Paul Brannigan

“THE ANGEL’S SHARE”  My rating: B+ (Opens April 26 at the Tivoli)

101 minutes | No MPAA rating            

The players rarely seem to be acting in Ken Loach films, usually because so many of them have never before been in a movie. But even when he casts old pros, the performances Loach gets are natural, unforced, and of an astonishingly high order.

Loach, now in his 70s and the dean of Britain’s left-leaning ashcan filmmakers, does it again in “The Angel’s Share,” a gentle comedy — with some very dramatic moments –about a bunch of kids from the Scottish underclass who become connoisseurs of fine whisky and then come up with a plan to steal some priceless century-old single malt.

We meet Robbie (Paul Brannigan, who in real life is a social worker) in a courtroom where he’s on trial for beating a fellow hooligan within an inch of his life. For reasons that not even he quite understands, Robbie gets 300 hours of community service instead of jail time. This is important since his girlfriend Leonie (Siobhan Reilly) is about to have his baby. Robbie makes a vow to stick to the straight and narrow and build a real life for his child.

But that’s not easy. During his days of carousing and coke-snorting Robbie has made many enemies who are still seeking revenge. Among them are Leonie’s uncles, who beat him senseless when he shows up at the hospital to see his new son. Moreover, his criminal record makes getting even a menial job impossible.

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“THE NUMBERS STATION”: Working for the Company

April 25, 2013 by butlerscinemascene

numbers“THE NUMBERS STATION” My rating: C+ (Opens April 27 at the Studio 30,  )
88 minutes | MPAA rating: R
 
It’s a minor affair, but Kasper Barfoed’s “The Numbers Station” reminds me of a John LeCarre espionage tale, the kind where characters with issues run up against a monolithic and unyielding system.The premise behind F. Scott Frazier’s screenplay finds CIA killer Emerson (John Cusack) stationed at a bunker deep in the Finnish countryside. After years as an effective killing machine, Emerson has balked on an assignment and has been sent to a low-stress, low-priority outpost to get his act together.You can probably guess that his new gig won’t be low stress for long.This facility is a numbers station, a shortwave broadcast center in a kind of missile silo. Numbers stations (they really exist) transmit seemingly random spoken words and numbers. Presumably these coded messages are aimed at spies in various countries and contain instructions, orders, warnings and other  top-secret information.Emerson’s job is to provide security for Katherine (Malin Akerman), a civilian employee of the CIA who reads the nonsensical  codes over the air. Continue Reading »

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“MUD”: Damn that McConaughey

April 25, 2013 by butlerscinemascene

sksksk N A and Matthew McConaughey

Tye Sheridan, Jacob Lofland and Matthew McConaughey

“MUD” My rating: A- (Opens April 26 at the Leawood, Barrywoods 24, Studio 30, Cinemark Palace)

130 minutes | MPAA rating: PG-13

Damn that Matthew McConaughey.

Just when you’re comfortable writing him off as a lazy, pretty-boy romcom hack, he decides to start really acting.

Over the last couple of years he’s blown off his easy-going leading-man ways and tackled edgy, multifaceted characters in films like “Bernie,” “Killer Joe,” “The Paperboy” and “Magic Mike.” Even if you don’t like the movies, you’ve gotta love what McConaughey is accomplishing here.

That great run continues with “Mud,” the third feature from Arkansas filmmaker Jeff Nichols.

Nichols writes and directs superlative dramas about working-class folk. His first two efforts — “Shotgun Stories” (about a modern day feud between the brothers of two families) and “Take Shelter” (with Michael Shannon as a disaster-obsessed man who builds an elaborate tornado shelter in his yard) – achieved a sort of gritty poetry.

“Mud” is just as powerful. Maybe moreso.

Unfolding along the waterways of the Arkansas Delta, “Mud” centers on 14-year-old Ellis (Tye Sheridan) and his best bud, Neckbone (Jacob Lofland).

Both kids survive on what their families can scratch out of the river. Ellis helps his father catch and sell crawdads, fish, and turtles. Neck, an orphan, lives in a seedy mobile home court with a slacker uncle (Michael Shannon) who harvests fresh-water oysters with a crude homemade diving helmet. Continue Reading »

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“UPSTREAM COLOR”: Unseen terrors

April 25, 2013 by butlerscinemascene

Shane Carruth, ddddd

Shane Carruth, Amy Seimetz in “Upstream Color”

“UPSTREAM COLOR” My rating: B (Opening April 26 at the Alamo Draft House)

96 minutes | No MPAA rating

Those who like their narratives neat, concise and uncluttered had best avoid Shane Carruth’s “Upstream Color.”  It’s a film for those who found Terrence Malick’s “Tree of Life” too conventional.

Still, it makes more sense than Carruth’s previous (and first) feature effort, the 2004 time travel oddity ” Primer.”

“Making sense” is a relative thing when dealing with Carruth. Narratively “Upstream Color” defies cateogrization or easy explanation. You could call it science fiction. Or maybe not.

 You could say the movie makes no sense.

And yet it makes sense emotionally.

Here’s what I can say with certainty about the fragmentary story: A young woman named Kris (Amy Seimetz) is abducted and subjected to some sort of mind-control therapy. In a zombie-like state she returns to her home with a flat-voiced handler  (Thiago Martins) who has her memorize Thoreau’s “On Walden Pond.” Kris is told that her mother has been kidnapped and she must come up with a ransom.

When she finally emerges from her stupor she imagines (or is it really happening?) that maggot-like worms are wriggling just under her skin. She is disoriented, lost.

Kris loses her job because of her unexplained absense, and is distressed to find that her bank account has been emptied. She is shown footage of herself making the withdrawl, but remembers none of it.

She harbors a vague sense of having been violated. Her OB/GYN tells her that her sexual organs have been damaged, rearranged, and that she will  never have children.

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“THE PLACE BEYOND THE PINES”: Half a great movie

April 12, 2013 by butlerscinemascene

Ryan Gosling

Ryan Gosling

“THE PLACE BEYOND THE PINES”  My rating: B (Opens April 12 at the Tivoli and Glenwood Arts)

140 minutes | MPAA rating: R

Derek Cianfrance’s “The Place Beyond the Pines” is actually two movies sharing several characters.

One of the movies, the first one, is borderline brilliant.  The second not so much.

The brilliance of Part I is largely due to Ryan Gosling, who re-amazes  every time he tackles a new role.

Here he is  Luke, a bleached-blond motorcycle daredevil with a seedy (is there any other kind?) traveling carnival.

 He’s in Schenectady, NY, doing his act, which consists of him riding his bike at top speed inside a big steel mesh ball. This is an apt

Eva Mendes

Eva Mendes

metaphor for his life – moments of terrifying excitement as centrifugal force allows him to ride upside down on the ball’s interior…but his path is a tight circle that never really takes him anywhere.

Luke discovers that Romina (Eva Mendes), the local woman with whom he spent a night the previous summer, has given birth to his son.  He surreptitiously follows her and her new guy (Mahershala Ali) to a church where the three-month-old baby is baptized.

Standing alone at the rear of the sanctuary, the heavily tattooed Luke finds himself incredibly moved by the ceremony and the knowledge that he is now a parent. Gosling expresses all this without saying a word…but you can see every thought and feeling on his features. It’s astoundingly moving.

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“42”: Conspiracy of decency

April 12, 2013 by butlerscinemascene

42 at bat“42” My rating: B (Opening wide on April 12)

128 mintues | MPAA rating: PG-13

The race-redefining rise of Jackie Robinson from the Negro Leagues to the long-segregated majors is the best American sports story ever.

So I wish I could report that the new movie “42” is among the greatest sports movies ever.

It isn’t.

Oh, it’s not a bust. Newcomer Chadwick Boseman gives a star-making performance as the young Jackie and the picture establishes an authentic sense of time and place. It shows all the racist b.s. Robinson  had to put up with as the first black man to play in Major League Baseball.

It’s just that this effort  from writer/director Brian Helgeland (whose resume runs from penning the screenplay for “L.A. Confidential” to directing the brutal noir thriller “Payback”) is is generally effective but rarely inspired. It’s so sincere and straightforward that artistry hardly figures into the equation.

Helgeland clearly wanted his  movie to bring Robinson’s story to a younger generation that most likely never heard of the Dodgers’ No. 42. He hasn’t dumbed things down, exactly, but it’s  a conservative approach — more a teaching moment than a fully-committed cinematic immersion.

The movie does a good job of delivering  the sailiant points of the Jackie Robinson legend, but overall it’s a cautious movie, one that goes out of its way to be nonthreatening, to hold the young viewers’ hands, to guide them through a world they are ignorant of or have avoided learning about.

The film boils down to a conspiracy between two men.

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“TRANCE”: You are feeling very, very drowsy…

April 12, 2013 by butlerscinemascene

Trance 1“TRANCE”  My rating: C- (Opening wide on April 12)

101 minutes | MPAA rating: R

Danny Boyle is like that little girl with the curl.  When’s he’s good (“Trainspotting,” “Shallow Grave,” “28 Days Later,” “`127 Hours”) he’s very good.

And when he screws up – as with “A Life Less Ordinary” and now “Trance” – he’s awful.

“Trance” is a crime thriller so overthought and overwrought  that it no longer makes any sense.

It begins with London auction house underling Simon (James McAvoy) attempting to save a precious Goya painting from a gang of crooks who have taken over the premises. In the process he gets banged on the noggin and awakens with no memory of what he’s done with the painting.

This is particularly galling to Frank (Vincent Cassel), the creepily threatening chief robber. You see, Simon was in on the caper and was to have delivered the painting for a fat cut of the proceeds. And now we’re supposed to believe he forgot where he put the goods?

After yanking out all of Simon’s fingernails, Frank is forced to admit that this may be a genuine case of amnesia. He sends Simon to hypnotherapist Elizabeth Lamb (Rosario Dawson), hoping that she can unlock the secrets in her patients’ skull.

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