Butler's Cinema Scene

“SLEEPWALK WITH ME”  My rating : B

90 minutes | No MPAA rating

Standup comic Mike Birbiglia makes a way more than adequate feature directing debut with “Sleepwalk With Me,” a big screen adaptation of his one-man stage show that suggests a genuine cinematic talent in the making.

Like most good movies, Birbiglia’s semi-autobiographical effort works on several levels.

On one it addresses the dreams of aspiring standup comic Matt Pandamiglio (Birbiglia). Matt tends bar in a comedy club but lives for those few moments when he’s allowed to climb on stage and try out his own material.  Problem is, Matt is almost painfully shy and tongue tied and, at first, anyway, his halting, uncertain delivery generates more pain than pleasure.

“Sleepwalk With Me” follows Matt’s gradual climb to comedy competence and, eventually, excellence.

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I’ve never been a big fan of horror movies. Too many cliches, too many worn-out tropes.

And at this late stage it’s almost impossible to come up with an idea so new, so shocking that it grabs audiences the way, say, “The Exorcist” did nearly 40 years ago. It seems like we’ve seen it all.

When we reach this stage of saturation, what’s needed is a movie that delivers the familiar in an entirely different way.  Which is where “Cabin in the Woods” comes in.

Written by geek god Joss Whedon and his colleague Drew Goddard (a producer on TV’s “Lost” and “Alias” and a screenwriter of “Cloverfield”) and directed by Goddard (it’s his first feature credit in that capacity), “Cabin…” cleverly turns the usual horror flick cliches inside out, much in the same way that Sam Raimi’s “Evil Dead 2” did back in the day.

You’ve got a quintet of typical college students gearing up for a big weekend in the country.

The buff jock Curt (Chris Hemsworth of “Thor” fame) has a cousin who has recently purchased an old cabin deep in the woods. He recruits his squeeze Dana (Kristen Connolly), her virginal galpal Jules (Anna Hutchison), a hunky brain named Holden (Jesse Williams) and the wisecracking stoner Marty (a scene-stealing Fran Kranz) for two days of sylvan revels.

Their preparations and drive into the forest are observed by Sitterson (Richard Jenkins) and Hadley (Bradley Whitford), who are installed in a high-tech control center filled with TV monitors that allow them to eavesdrop on the partiers’ every move through literally thousands of hidden cameras and microphones.

Just what are Sitterson and Hadley up to? Our first guess is that they’re producing a reality TV show in which unsuspecting subjects are put into “horror” situations. In any case, these two button-pushers command a huge staff of helpers who bring their scenarios to life.

In this regard the film reminds of “Hunger Games” and “The Truman Show.”

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“FAREWELL, MY QUEEN” My rating: B+ (Now showing at the Glenwood Arts)

100 minutes | MPAA rating: R

The fate of France’s King Louis XVI and his wife, Marie Antoinette, never seems to lose its appeal for filmmakers.

But writer/director Benoit Jacquot finds a new twist with “Farewell, My Queen,” in which the French Revolution and the fate of royalty is viewed through the eyes of the hired help. It’s like “Upstairs Downstairs – Gallic Division.”

Sidonie (Lea Seydoux, who was an assassin in the last “Mission Impossible” film and the shop owner who ends up with Owen Wilson in Woody Allen’s “Midnight in Paris”) is the Queen’s reader. Each morning she greets Her Majesty with a few passages from a favorite book … precisely which book is determined by the head lady in waiting (Noemie Lvovsky), who attempts to match the day’s reading to the Queen’s current temperament.

Living in Versailles in 1789, it turns out, is less glamour than drudgery. Sidonie and her fellow workers spend most of their time in dank, undecorated rooms with meager furniture and dirty plastered walls. They take their meals in a cellar that’s positively dungeon-like.

But Sidonie came here to serve her queen. And the moments she spends with Marie Antoinette in the Queen’s sumptuously appointed suites are her reason for living.

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“CELESTE & JESSE FOREVER” My rating: C (Opens Aug. 31 at the Glenwood Red Bridge, Town Center 20 and Studio 30 )

91 minutes | MPAA rating: R

Despite some laughs and the presence of the ever-amusing Andy Samberg, “Celeste & Jesse Forever” is not a comedy.

Rather, it is a sincere attempt to analyze the breakup of a marriage. It raises some interesting points.

Unfortunately, it delivers them in a repetitive and not-very-engrossing way.

We meet the titular characters (Rashida Jones, who co-wrote the screenplay, and Samberg) driving to meet friends for dinner. They appear to be a perfect couple, keyed in to each other’s emotions, sharing little private games.

It’s only when they sit down with their pals that we realize that Celeste and Jesse have been separated for several months in anticipation of a divorce. But they still feel like a couple. In fact Jesse now lives in the garage/studio behind Celeste’s house.

This setup creeps out their friends as unnatural. But for C and J it’s the ideal, civilized, non-acrimonious breakup, one that doesn’t force their acquaintances to side with one or the other partner.

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“COSMOPOLIS” My rating: C (Opening Aug. 31 at the Glenwood Arts)

108 minutes | MPAA rating: R

Because it stars “Twilight” hottie Robert Pattinson, some of his loyal tweener fans  and their moms may think about seeing his latest film, “Cosmopolis.”

Think again.

Our first glimpse of Rob-Pat as Eric Packer, a billionaire master of Wall Street, does remind a bit of his “Twilight” persona. Packer is pale, red-lipped and hides from the sun behind a dark pair of glasses. And you could describe him as a vampire, at least in the economic sense.

But beware, ladies. This film was directed by David Cronenberg, who has made a career of psychopathy (see “Crash,” “Dead Rigners,” etc.), and over its nearly two-hour running time Pattinson’s Packer has sex with several women, kills someone (for no apparent reason) and submits to the longest prostate examination in medical (and certainly movie) history.

Moreover, “Cosmopolis” is a dispiritingly leaden movie, one populated less with characters than with archtypes. People here speak in long, theatrical monologues. They might as well be wind-up toys.

It wears out its welcome long before the closing bell. Continue Reading »

“LAWLESS” My rating: B- (Opening wide on Aug. 29)

115 minutes | MPAA rating: R

Reeking of period atmosphere and packed with faces that seem to have stepped out of the WPA  photographs of Dorothea Lange (or maybe the Skid Row portraiture of Weegee), the period crime drama “Lawless” certainly looks good.

Guy Pearce

But the latest from Australia’s John Hillcoat (who gave us the Down Under western “The Proposition” and the post-apocalyptic “The Road”) is a dramatically fuzzy venture, one that clumsily attempts to balance vintage bootlegger clichés and hard-core violence with moments of oddball humor.

The subject of the screenplay by Nick Cave (the eccentric Aussie rock star who also scripted “The Proposition”) are the backwoods Bondurants of Virginia, a real-life clan that in the early years of the Depression ran a major bootlegging operation  providing illegal liquor to speakeasies all over the East Coast.

Forrest Bondurant (Tom Hardy, last seen – barely —  beneath Bane’s mask in “The Dark Knight Rises”) heads the operation. A veteran of the Great War who has a reputation as unkillable, Forrest is socially uneasy loner who says little (he croaks like Billy Bob Thornton in “Slingblade”) and radiates an arresting blend of primitive strength and intimidation. Folks hereabouts know better than to cross him.

Helping out with the heavy lifting is brother Howard (Jason Clarke), a shaggy fellow a bit too in love with the family product to be wholly reliable.

Baby brother Jack (Shia LaBeouf) is eager to get into the bootlegging game, but Forrest wants him to go slow, figuring Jack lacks the cut-throat inclinations the job demands.

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